


Book Three:  In the House of Stone and Light

by ladyeternal



Series: Shape the Invisible [3]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Barebacking, Blow Jobs, Bobby Singer is Grumpy Bear, Bottom Dean, Bottom Gabriel, Chuck Shurley is God, Dean Winchester Has Powers, East of the Sun and West of the Moon Elements, First Time, First Time Blow Jobs, Fractured Fairy Tale, Loss of Virginity, M/M, Mating Marks, Pre-Season/Series 01, Sam & Dean's shared Heaven, Sam Winchester Has Powers, Soul Bond, Team Free Love, Vampire: Dark Ages Elements, Virgin Castiel, Wing Kink, Zachariah is a dick in any universe, heaven's prison
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-10
Updated: 2018-04-21
Packaged: 2019-03-29 12:49:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 31,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13927467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyeternal/pseuds/ladyeternal
Summary: Their path decided, Sam and Dean Winchester, along with Dean's guardian angel Castiel, embark on a mission to rescue the Archangel Gabriel from his unfair imprisonment.  But when your one true love can only be found in the lands east of the sun and west of the moon, it's almost impossible to not stumble across your destiny along the way.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, my lovely readers! Just a quick note here before we dive into the story.
> 
> Like I said in the last chapter of Book Two, my version of Caine is drawn from his backstory & characterization in the original Vampire: the Masquerade RPG by White Wolf: specifically, from a sourcebook for their Vampire: Dark Ages campaign called _**The Erciyes Fragments**_. I conceived and outlined this story years before Caine was introduced into SPN canon, and so I chose to call artistic license and continue using that version of him. I hope it doesn't cause too much dissonance for anyone.
> 
> Please see the series page for complete notes, acknowledgments, warnings and fanmix. And don't forget to go give [peanutbutterandjelly](http://peanutbutterthenjelly.tumblr.com/post/168603265262/shape-the-invisible-by-ladyeternal178-posting) some love for the awesome artwork she's done for this series!

~ooooOOOoooo~

_July 9, 2005_

When the Winchesters landed, they were alone, surrounded by red earth foothills at the base of granite mountains. Sunlight blazed, making both men wince at the drastic difference from the darkness they had been removed from only a heartbeat earlier.

“Goddamn,” Dean muttered, shading his eyes with one hand and wishing he’d thought to grab sunglasses from the Impala before they’d left. “You see that stuff he set aside for us anywhere?”

Sam scanned the area, his own eyes squinted almost shut in the brightness. “There,” he said after a moment, starting for the pile of rocks that Castiel had told them concealed the supplies he’d arranged.

They assessed what the angel had gathered for them quickly enough: packs containing rations for four days’ hike up the mountain pass, water, matches and tinder for making nightly fires, and bedrolls. It wasn’t quite what either would’ve brought on an extended camping trip, but it would get them by. Dean huffed as he set his pack in an order more to his liking and flicked a glance back up at the brilliant azure sky. “Woulda been nice to get dropped off a little higher up the trail since we’ve gotta walk it. You think that village he talked about is close enough that maybe we could hike down and rent a couple donkeys to ride or something?”

Sam rolled his eyes as he got up to his knees and shouldered his own pack. “It’s the best he could do, Dean. We both know how much he’s risking to help us. And last I knew, neither of us speak Turkish, Persian, Armenian or Aramaic.” The unamused expression that Dean threw at him in response needed no translation, and Sam chuffed a laugh as they both pushed to their feet. “C’mon: the sooner we start out, the more ground we can cover before dark.”

* * *

It was a long trek, and a largely silent one. Neither brother wanted to waste energy or oxygen on talking overmuch as they followed the trail deeper into the mountains, and they’d mastered the use of military hand signals so long ago that it was second nature to them now. They’d even expanded the lexicon to include American Sign Language in the darker years between their mother’s death and the accident that had finally sent John to join her, for both practical and emotional reasons.

There was something about the mountains, too, that suppressed almost all thought of speaking aloud. Something that was at once serene and menacing, inspiring hushed murmurs when they did need to speak and leaving them both contemplative and wary as they walked.

Castiel could not join them openly even when they camped for the nights, either. Though the full light of the sun was lost earlier among the peaks than it would have been in the villages below, the brothers didn’t dare push along the unfamiliar trail when twilight made their surroundings hazy, and the temperature dropped too quickly for them to go without a fire once they stopped for the evening.

It made for a tense three nights, with sleep coming only in shifts and both brothers keeping weapons close at hand. The vague sense of danger that whispered in their minds during the daylight hours was easy to rationalize away: unfamiliar territory meant unknown hazards both from men and nature, after all, but they could marshall arguments in their own minds to counter each potential threat. In the darkness, though, it was impossible to ignore the Presence that seemed to hover at the edges of their firelight, as if they were voles daring to sleep beneath the shadow of a hawk’s wings.

{We’re definitely being watched,} Dean signed to Sam on the third night as they were bedding down after a meager dinner.

{Not by a human,} Sam agreed, checking his 9mm before settling down for his turn to sleep. {You think it’s him? Or maybe the angels sent someone because they’re getting suspicious, like Cas thought they would?}

{Too many suspects.} Dean’s eyes scanned the darkness, glittering with something almost predatory in the flickering firelight. {We don’t find this place tomorrow, though, and I get the feelin’ we won’t be wondering for long.}

{We can handle it,} Sam assured him, the motion of his fingers crisp in an attempt to convey confidence. {Wake me if you get tired.}

Dean nodded, waiting until he heard Sam’s breath even out to let his fingers murmur: {Glad one of us is sure of that.}

* * *

_July 13, 2005_

Mid-morning on the fourth day was when they caught their first glimpse of their destination.

The trail plunged down so steeply that it almost gave them vertigo when they came to the crest overlooking a complex that seemed hewn from the very rock surrounding them. The narrow valley in which it was nestled was cast in perpetual shadow, the light of the sun never quite reaching past the peaks to touch what lay cradled beneath them.

“I guess whoever named it wasn’t just going through a Goth emo phase,” Dean breathed, his eyes huge as he stared down into the valley. From their vantage point, they could see no evidence of habitation: only grey stone walls built out from the cliffs to block the trail, and a gate that might have been forged sometime during the Bronze Age.

“It’ll take half the day to get down there,” Sam guessed quietly, gauging their descent. “And no cover, either. They’ll know we’re coming.”

“Well, then let’s just hope they put dinner on for us. It’ll probably be goat.” Dean adjusted his pack on his shoulders, his expression grimly determined. “I hate goat.”

“You’ve never had goat,” Sam argued pointedly.

“We’re about to go knock on the door of a guy that’s older than anything else we’ve ever even heard of,” Dean shot back. “And you’re _sassing_ me?”

“Get over it.” Sam angled to slip past him and started to work his way down. “Remembering all the times you’ve wanted to shoot me’ll give you something in common with him.”

Dean’s eyes rolled Heavenward and he sent up a silent prayer to Castiel for strength before he moved to follow his brother down.

Although both brothers tried to keep an eye on the monastery complex as they descended, neither had seen the emergence of the brunette monk that was waiting for them at the gates by the time they reached the point where the trail finally leveled out again. The great metal hinges had apparently made no sound when he’d swung them open, and he stood just within the threshold with no trace of hostility or suspicion in his body language. Appearing no older than thirty, he kept his arms folded at his waist and the wide-mouthed sleeves of his simple, hooded grey wool robe concealed his hands from view. A gentle smile ghosted around his mouth as they approached, his eyes holding neither fear nor surprise nor even mild curiosity.

“Looks like he’s the welcoming committee,” Dean murmured to his brother. “Like to know how he got out here and opened that up without us seein’ him.”

“Not sure we’ll like it much if we find out,” Sam countered, his lips scarcely moving around the words and his eyes fixed on the monk. The man never moved as they closed on him, his head tilted ever so slightly as if listening to something the brothers couldn’t hear. “Um, hi? Do… uh…”

“Good day.” Both brothers startled as the man spoke in clear English, an accent neither could identify brushed along the edge of each syllable. “Rooms have been prepared for you; please come in and refresh yourselves.” Dean’s spine went rigid and the pale bronze skin around the man’s brown eyes crinkled in the faintest trace of amusement. “We offer no deception. It is not necessary in this place.”

“Awesome.” Dean’s voice was like ashes as they passed through the gate, falling into step behind the monk. Sam took position at Dean’s four o’clock, and Dean let his eyes sweep around the courtyard as they moved towards the complex. Glancing back once to check their six didn’t help the unease steadily blooming in his gut.

Without so much as a sound to hint that it had happened, the gate had somehow been closed in their wake, as if it had never been opened at all.

* * *

Though there were other monks walking the halls, no one spoke as Dean and Sam were escorted to the rooms that their guide had spoken of. Sallow light flickered from strange-smelling torches lining the walls, casting everyone that glided through the honeycomb of passageways in the same dusky pallor and making it difficult to tell how old or young any one of them might be. No one stopped to question their guide about them, or even visibly reacted to the two brothers in any way, but there was no doubt in either brother’s mind that every person they’d passed had marked their presence and would know them from their brethren on sight.

“You are welcome to join us for our evening meal,” their guide offered politely as he opened a door and stepped inside it ahead of them. There were oil lamps burning within, revealing a neatly kept room that might have looked like a study in another time and place. “There is a bath just beyond that door, and sleeping chambers through the others.”

“Didn’t know monks got to live in this kinda style,” Dean commented, checking the corners as best he could with the dim light.

“Our dormitory lies elsewhere.” Remaining perfectly still, their guide watched as the brothers slowly moved into the common area of the room, missing none of the signs that they were gauging defensible angles and possible dangers. “This place is for honored guests from the outside world.”

“Is that what we are?” Sam asked, one eyebrow twitching as he turned to face the still-nameless monk.

“If you were not, you would not have been permitted beyond the gate.” All at once, the flames in all of the lamps guttered, almost driving the brothers to reach for their guns. “If you do not wish to join us in common, I will arrange for something to be brought for you at evensong.”

“We’ve been walking a while,” Dean answered, watching for any reaction he could catch as he said it. He didn’t know if he was more frustrated or disturbed when there was none to see. “Doubt we’ll be up to much socializing tonight.”

“As you wish.” Turning towards the door, he reached up and took hold of a rope hanging against the wall to the right of it. “Should you require aught, merely pull this bell. One of us will present our services at once.”

“Swell.” Dean fought the insistent need to have his .45 in hand. “You got a name, pal?”

Stopping in the doorway, the young man turned back towards them. The play of the light almost hid the smile that once again ghosted around his lips. “Mehujael. But you may call me Jae, Dean Winchester, as you are likely to do so anyway.” Ignoring the stunned expression on both brothers’ faces, Mehujael bowed. “Call upon us if you have a need.” And with that, he left, closing the door behind him.

Unfrozen by the click of the latch, Dean immediately crossed the room. Testing the door revealed that it was not locked or barred in any way, though the passage outside their rooms was empty. “How the fuck does he move so fast?” he sniped as he closed the door again.

Sam’s 9mm was in his hands, his steps careful as he moved to clear the adjoining rooms. “You always did resist learning the genealogy parts of the lore. Mehujael’s listed in Genesis as one of Caine’s great-grandchildren.”

They finished clearing the rooms before Dean spoke again. “I’m starting to get a bad feeling about this, Sammy. First we’re being watched the entire hike up here, and then the welcome wagon is Caine’s great-grandkid? Who, by the way, already knows our names, speaks perfect English, can move faster than we can see and open up gates that shoulda rusted shut in the Stone Age without making a sound?”

“I don’t much like it either, but it’s not like we’ve got a lot of alternatives,” Sam pointed out reasonably. “I doubt we’d be allowed to leave at this point even if we wanted to without Caine’s permission.” Shrugging out of his pack, Sam started rummaging for one of his last bottles of water. “They drew a hot bath for us, y’know. You can see the steam curling off the top.”

Something in Dean’s mistrustful expression rearranged itself, and it was all Sam could do to not laugh. “Well… as long as we’re here…”

“Go,” Sam urged on a chuckle. “I’ll take my turn when you’re done.” Dean turned and went eagerly, leaving Sam alone with his thoughts. _We’re coming,_ he prayed silently, doubting that Gabriel could hear him but unable to help hoping it anyway. _Just a little while longer. I promise._

* * *

_July 14, 2005_

Despite the unfamiliar surroundings and the sense of foreboding hovering in the air like an unbroken thunderhead, both brothers found themselves sleeping deeply in their respective beds that night. Dinner had been a hearty goat stew which Dean had devoured despite his prediction being proven correct, and being clean and warm and well-fed made it almost impossible to consider sleeping in shifts as they had on the hike up the mountain.

A tug on the bell when they were up and dressed brought Mehujael again, a tray with bowls of warm porridge, small cups and a jug of water in hand. “I trust you slept comfortably,” he greeted them as he set the tray on the small common table.

“Yeah, thanks.” Dean swiped a finger into the porridge and tested it for strange reactions or aftertaste.

“You will be unmolested here,” Mehujael asserted again.

“Well, excuse me for old habits, huh, Jae?” Dean replied snippily as he sat down to tuck into his breakfast. “We don’t take a lot on faith where we come from.”

Amusement twitched briefly at Mehujael’s lips, catching Sam’s attention. “You say we’re honored guests, Mehujael, but it’s not like we’re here at someone’s invitation.”

“It does not follow that uninvited means unwelcome,” Mehujael countered smoothly. “Your lineage is unbroken, written for such as we to read in every vein. And your purpose in coming here is the source of great curiosity.”

“From you and the other monks, you mean?” The question was met with a beat of silence, and Dean paused in scraping his bowl to look up at the monk. “Or is it somebody else that’s all fired up about us?”

“Rest for now,” Mehujael finally said, sidestepping the question. The implication behind that non-answer seemed to roar in the air around them. “Perhaps later, you would like a tour of the library?”

“That’s not why we’re here,” Sam told him seriously.

Dark eyes fixed on Sam, Mehujael’s expression now almost grave. “Perhaps you will enjoy it, anyway.” Without another word, he turned and left them to their remaining breakfast.

Pouring himself some water, Dean’s face spoke entire volumes of disquiet. Sam finally sat and ate his breakfast, noting the unusual flavor, as if the porridge had been cooked in broth rather than water. “We’re in deeper than we figured, aren’t we?” he asked Dean carefully when he was finished.

“Yup.” Dean’s eyes were trained on the door, his generous mouth drawn into a tight, unhappy line. “If Caine or the angels don’t kill us, Bobby just might when he finds out.”

“What’s say we don’t tell him, then?” Sam suggested.

“Good luck with that,” Dean snorted.

* * *

Several hours passed before Mehujael returned to their rooms, though the only way the brothers knew that for certain was from Dean’s watch. The lack of windows in their rooms, as well as everywhere else in the surrounding wing that they’d dared explore, otherwise obscured all sense of the passage of time. Given their purpose, neither of them wanted to push too hard against the boundaries that had been so politely set around them.

Yet.

“What made you decide to learn English?” Sam asked Mehujael while the monk escorted them to the library as he’d promised. “I can’t imagine you get a lot of English-speakers up here.”

“You imagine correctly,” Mehujael agreed. “Nor is there more than a handful of people in the villages with which we trade that are even familiar with it. I have a… gift for tongues, and I am not so young as I appear. Setting oneself a challenge for its own sake fills many hours that would otherwise be empty, and all accomplishment has value, regardless of its relative practicality.”

“Oh, yeah?” Dean glanced sidelong, once again looking for micro-expressions in Mehujael’s face. He wasn’t used to being so completely unable to read someone. “How old are you, exactly?”

“Old enough for that question to be relatively meaningless.” The doors of the great library parted easily at the monk’s gentle push, and he flicked a glance at Dean as he led them inside. “But you’ve already guessed as much, haven’t you?”

Dean’s teeth ground. “Why the Hell is everybody I run into lately being such cagey bastards? Does lack of sunshine make you just forget how to give a straight answer or something?”

Before Mehujael could answer, another voice sounded from within the shadows of the library shelves. “Pressing even the most gifted mind into finding answers is always more rewarding than simply giving them.”

Instinct kicked in; both brothers drew down on the stranger to whom the voice belonged, falling back into defensive positions against the wall. There was a faint cast of disapproval in Mehujael’s eyes as he stood to the side, but otherwise he seemed neither alarmed or intimidated by the firearms that had suddenly appeared in the Winchesters’ hands.

“Those won’t do you much good here,” the voice continued, drawing closer as its owner emerged from the stacks. He was of a height with Dean; the long hair tied back at his nape and his short-cropped beard were both dark and shot with grey. Unlike the monks, he wore pants and a short-sleeved tunic, belted at the waist. His skin was even paler than that of the monks they’d seen in the hallways, and his eyes were the bright blue of a summer sky. “The Order of Shadows cannot be harmed by bullets, and considering what my Grandfather did, using them on me would be even less advisable.”

Sam’s heart gave a strange kind of lurch. He lowered his 9mm even as Dean kept his .45 leveled at the newcomer’s head, gaze raking over the man until he saw what he needed to see: a mark like a crimson scar on his right forearm. Even at a distance, Sam could feel the hum of power layered into it. A warning in more ways than one.

Without taking his eyes away, Sam’s hand reached out to find Dean’s arms and pressed down, making his brother lower his gun. When Dean made a sound of protest and tried to raise them again, Sam held on tighter, stilling the motion. “You’re Caine,” he asserted softly, almost breathless at the realization, the reality of it.

A smile touched his lips, and Caine nodded. “I believe you two came a long way to talk to me.”

* * *

“So, tell me why you’ve come.”

Caine’s apartments were secreted on the other side of a passage beyond the library. The receiving room to which he led the brothers was arranged in a style reminiscent of ancient Mediterranean cultures, with three reclining couches grouped around a low table and the fourth side open to allow for service. Just beyond the seating area was an open balcony, allowing a filter of daylight and breaths of cool mountain air into a space that would have seemed cavernous by comparison. He gestured for the brothers to seat themselves, taking up his own couch between them. “If it’s sanctuary you seek, there is no place in any realm more heavily warded. Michael and the Morningstar can’t breach them even to enter your dreams.”

“Our dreams?” Dean echoed, sitting almost warily. His eyes flickered to the monk serving them with goblets of something warm and smelling of spices before refocusing on Caine. “They can do that?”

“Outside of this valley, yes.” Caine took a sip from his goblet, his eyes speculative as he considered the brothers. “But that’s not why you’re here, is it?”

“We need your help,” Sam told him, the words rushing out. “Or… more like a favor, really. We need to get to the Eastern Watchtower, and we were told that the only way to get there is by passing through this monastery.”

Caine’s expression went still; sitting up, he set down his goblet with a deliberate motion and looked both of the Winchesters over intently. For just a moment, Dean got the impression that Caine’s eyes had changed focus to somewhere else, reading something unseen in the air around them. By the time Caine sat back again, his eyes were normal. “Well… that explains why Castiel is waiting so anxiously outside my borders.”

“Whaddyou know about Cas?” Dean demanded.

“I’ve known him since I was a child, actually.” Caine lifted his goblet to his lips again, bittersweetness making his smile brittle. “My brother and I grew up in the shadow of Eden, and played the unnameable games of childhood beneath the wings of the angels that guarded it against my parents’ attempts to return. Castiel was one of many that knew us in those days, and one of the few that my father was certain had meant every word of his Holy Oath.”

“This the same brother you murdered?” Dean couldn’t help asking, censure dripping from every word.

The way Sam made Dean’s name a quiet, appalled remonstrance was lost in the way Caine’s eyes suddenly blazed, an ancient anger rising around him like an aura. “You know nothing of what passed between us, Dean. Habel was the first and best of all I possessed, untainted by the curses laid upon my parents in the wake of their disobedience. He demanded a sacrifice, and He will accept no impure thing as worthy.”

“So you figured your brother fit the bill, huh?” Refusing to let how intimidating the elder man was in that moment show, Dean met those enraged eyes with calm, neutral challenge. “He was your brother, man.”

“And it was his idea.” There was a dreadful satisfaction in the way Dean’s eyes widened in the face of that assertion, but Caine couldn’t enjoy it. The memories were too painful for that, even after millennia. “Habel was certain that my intent would be enough. Persuaded me that He would intervene before…” The words trailed away, too heavy with grief to be spoken. “But He didn’t, and Habel died by my hand, and I was cast out for offering up exactly what He asked of us.”

“But didn’t the angels come to offer you forgiveness?” Sam asked, his voice careful around the edges of a grief undimmed by time. “You could’ve gone back, instead of… becoming…”

A mirthless chuckle left Caine’s throat. “For what should I be forgiven, Samuel Winchester?” he asked sardonically. “Habel was my younger brother. My only friend. My truest companion.” His gaze swept to Dean, whose face was grim but no longer challenging. “In your wildest imaginings, what forgiveness can He ever offer that you think I would accept?

“But rather than understanding that,” he continued, turning back to look at Sam again, “the angels each cursed me in their turn when I spurned that which they should have known I could never accept, seeing none of my grief and hearing only words spoken in a rage that has yet to die in all these centuries. Michael, who could not bring himself to strike down his most rebellious brother even at God’s command, made fire my enemy. Uriel, who if my father’s stories are true was a breath’s whisper from joining Lucifer in rebellion, cursed me to dwell ever in darkness.

“And Gabriel… my Grandfather’s mark makes it impossible for any of my father’s get to raise a hand against me, but it was Gabriel’s curse that bound me to an immortal existence. Habel’s spirit has attached itself to me, unwilling to leave my side even in death, and thanks to the Messenger I am unable to die and give him the rest he deserves unless I repent a sin that can never be washed clean.” Seeing the stricken expression on Sam’s face, Caine took a breath and attempted to regain control of his anger. “And it is he you seek, isn’t it?” he guessed. “The mating mark you bear is his, and you seek the Eastern Watchtower in an attempt to find him.”

“Yes,” Sam admitted. “The other angels… they think that he used his powers on me like the Grigori used theirs before the Flood…”

“No.”

Sam blinked. Dean sat up straighter. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Caine turned to look at the elder Winchester. “My answer is no. I will not show you the path to my father’s lands so that you and your brother may attempt to free Gabriel from whatever punishment he now finds himself enduring. If he is undeserving of that fate, so my brother and I are undeserving ours. Let it teach him some humility... and perhaps my Grandfather will in turn learn that One Whose Sight transcends Time itself should be more careful of the edicts He lays upon His children.”

“You can’t just say no,” Dean argued. “Not without hearing us out. Haven’t you ever heard of being the bigger person?”

“Being a bigger person,” Caine replied calmly, “often means allowing those who exhibit shameful behavior to get away with it.”

“You sonuva-”

“I think you should both return to your rooms.” As if the words themselves had been summons, Mehujael appeared in the doorway. “Preparations will be made to supply your return journey on the morrow.”

“Please.” Sam’s eyes were wet as he stood, his voice reedy from desperation. “We can’t do this without your help.”

“I know.” Caine looked up at Sam, something on the edges of his expression that neither brother was sure how to name. “But allowing Heaven to have any influence over your life invites nothing but blood, misery and death, Sam. Take it from someone who knows only too well, and learn from my mistakes.”

Dean came around and took his brother’s arm even as Sam opened his mouth to try again. “Come on, Sammy,” he urged quietly. “Looks like we’re done here.”

A throb of unspoken words knotted in Sam’s throat. With one last, pleading look to an impassive Caine, he followed his brother and Mehujael back down the passage into the library, dragging defeat like a chain behind him.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, please see the series page for fanmix, warnings, notes and acknowledgments. Amazing art by [peanutbutterthenjelly](http://peanutbutterthenjelly.tumblr.com/post/168603265262/shape-the-invisible-by-ladyeternal178-posting) in this chapter, so go give her some love for it!
> 
> Also: bonus points for anyone that leaves a comments identifying the pop culture reference Dean makes in this chapter. ~_^

~ooooOOOoooo~

They didn’t speak as Mehujael escorted them back to their rooms. Upon entry, Dean rounded on the elder as Sam found his way to a chair and flopped into it. “Did you know he was gonna just shut us down like that?” he demanded.

“No.” For once, the older man allowed his face to show signs of his inner thoughts, and there was a disturbed air around his eyes. “Is it true?” he asked, his dark eyes flickering to Sam. “Did Gabriel mark you as his mate?”

“I don’t know what that means,” Sam replied. His own expression shifted after he said it, reshaping from misery to thoughtfulness. “Unless… do you mean this?” He stood and turned, gathering his shirt until it exposed the raised handprint scar at his waist.

Mehujael started towards him, but didn’t get more than a step before Dean put himself between them, warning radiating through every pore. “You’ve seen it,” Dean growled softly. “Now what do you know?”

“Only…” If possible, Mehujael’s face had gone even paler, and his eyes were wide as they pulled away from the scar on Sam’s waist and met Dean’s. “Before the Flood, when angels and humans walked the Earth in common, seraphim marked their mates in such ways. It was a sign of a profound bond between lovers, but also a warning to other immortals that the human was claimed, spoken for, protected. In many ways, they echo the Mark YHWH left on my great-grandfather, though the intent in the leaving of them couldn’t have been more different.”

“So it’s not just an angel hickey?” Dean asked. Only Sam knew how forced the sarcasm in his voice was. How Dean was reeling internally from the implications of the mark on his own thigh given the new information.

“No.” Mehujael shook his head, his gaze shifting to Sam again. “It cannot be raised in the wake of simple lust; there must be true devotion on the part of the angel, far beyond the love that compelled their oaths to Edom. And because it is a mark on your soul as well as your physical body, the human has to accept the connection in order for the mark to be created. It ties soul and grace eternally, able to follow one another through any realm or reincarnation. At least,” he hedged, “that is if the tales are to be believed. It has been millennia since such a bond was even formed.”

“Jae, you have to help us.” Sam stepped forward until he was chest-to-back with Dean, doing nothing to disguise the way this felt like grasping at a last, desperate hope. “Please… if you know where the door is…”

“I do not,” he replied firmly. “Qa-yin has never sought to return to the lands of his youth, and he would never permit us to journey there. The memories are too painful, I think, for him to ever allow it even to sate the most academic of curiosity.”

Dean was watching the older man’s face, reading the signals quickly now. “But there’s something, isn’t there? You’ve got an idea.”

For a long, heavy moment, Mehujael hesitated, clearly weighing something in his own mind. “I know that he seems unreasonable,” he began, his voice low and clearly treading carefully on what he could or couldn’t say. “No amount of time will ever dim his hatred for YHWH, I think, or his anger with his seraphic uncles for refusing to see what he thought was obvious in his heart.”

“But?” Dean coaxed.

“But I do not think he would begrudge it if Sam wanted to return to the library tonight.” Dean’s eyebrows went up even as Sam looked between them in confusion. “From the stories he’s told me, it’s possible that Sam reminds him of Habel, and he never could refuse Habel whatever he desired… especially if Habel argued his side persistently enough.”

Understanding dawned. The brothers looked at one another. “Do you think-?”

“Don’t know until you try, Sammy,” Dean replied before looking at Mehujael. “As long as he won’t be in any danger in there?”

Mehujael smiled, a hint of conspiracy tucked into the corners. “What harm could befall him among reams of ancient parchment?”

“Plenty,” Dean growled, warning clear in his tone. “So none of it better happen, or I’m gonna rip somebody’s lungs out, God-marked or not.”

A laugh rang out from Mehujael’s throat at that. “Do you know? I truly believe you could.”

* * *

Hours passed almost fitfully. Both brothers tried to nap, but sleep eluded them even when they were tangled into the same bed. Provisions that were ostensibly for their journey back to the realms of men were brought for them, and they arranged their packs as if they had every intention of leaving as Caine had bid them. But underlying everything they did, there was a nervous crackle in the air that neither could find a way to shake.

When Mehujael returned after their dinner had been cleared away, Dean looked at Sam. “Last chance to let me try instead, Sammy.”

“It’s okay, Dean.” Sam smiled at his brother, trying for a reassurance he wasn’t sure he managed. “You got Cas on board, and that got us this far. Gotta start pulling my weight sometime.”

“This _was_ your idea,” Dean pointed out helpfully. “And it’s your angel boyfriend we’re trying to spring.”

“Archangel,” Sam corrected, a grin breaking over his face.

“Bitch,” Dean retorted automatically.

“Jerk.” Sam stood up even as the reflexive response left him, and pulled Dean into a fierce hug. “I’ll be fine,” he promised. “He won’t hurt me… and I have to try.”

“Yeah, okay.” Dean withdrew from the hug after a long moment, patting Sam’s shoulder as his brother stepped over to the open door. He caught sight of a box on the table that hadn’t been there before and frowned. “What’s that?”

“A gift,” Mehujael explained, “to occupy your mind while Sam is away.”

Dean lifted one eyebrow. “What is it?” he repeated.

“You’ll see.” There was, if possible, mischief in the elder’s smile as he turned and left, taking Sam with him.

* * *

When they arrived at the library, Mehujael retrieved a taper, set it in a small metal candleholder and lit it off one of the torches in the hall. “You’ll have to go the rest of the way on your own.”

“Caine’s not going to be angry with you about this, is he?” Worry had begun to gnaw away at Sam’s gut as they’d walked. It was bad enough what Gabriel was suffering because of Sam’s moment of doubt, and the risks to himself were a price he would gladly pay to undo what that falter in his faith had cost the archangel. But the number of people at risk besides himself kept growing: Dean. Castiel. Abariel. Now Mehujael. Who knew how many other angels that they would convince to help them by the time this was over.

Sam wasn’t sure how many lives he could bear to ruin.

His concern must have been more transparent than he’d thought, because Mehujael smiled comfortingly as he handed Sam the candle, placing his free hand on Sam’s upper arm. “It won’t be the first time we’ve been at odds. He’ll probably refuse to speak to me for a decade or so, but eventually, I’ll earn his forgiveness and everything will be as it should again. Is that not how it is in families anymore?”

The word startled Sam briefly. Despite knowing that the man who stood beside him was Caine’s great-grandchild, it hadn’t occurred to Sam to think of them as ‘family’. “Well… it depends on the family, I guess.”

Patting Sam’s arm, Mehujael nodded towards the library door. “Go on… and good luck.”

“Thanks, Jae.” Taking a deep breath as the monk disappeared from sight, Sam opened the door to the library and slipped inside.

* * *

For a long moment after they’d gone, Dean eyed the box on the table. It didn’t appear to be anything more than a block of wood. Picking it up carefully, Dean’s fingers found fine seams that the lamplight hadn’t let him see, and he turned it over and over in his hands in consideration of how the pieces had to fit together.

“If a bunch of Cenobites come popping outta this thing, I’m gonna be pissed,” Dean finally muttered to himself, his fingers finding the right pressure points to start pushing the box open.

All at once, Dean felt something slam down against his hand, knocking the box to the floor before he could open it. “What the-” He looked up to find shockingly familiar blue eyes staring back at him, wide with urgency and edged with anger. “ _Cas?_ ”

“Dean, what were you thinking?” Castiel demanded. “You could have died opening that.”

“What are you…?” Dean’s mind stumbled, then shook itself back into order. “Nevermind that now, Cas; how the fuck did you get in here?”

“I sensed that your life was in danger,” Castiel explained, his own voice stretched with impatience.

“Yeah, but…” Dean gestured around. “The wards? How’d you get past ‘em?”

The question brought Castiel up short. It occurred to Dean suddenly that Castiel had come on instinct, without thinking about how it was that he would reach Dean or what the consequences might be of going to Dean’s side. “I…” Those blue eyes went unfocused for a moment, and then he looked back up at Dean. “Someone has added my name into them in a way that excludes me from the warding. This shouldn’t… be possible… Dean, what have you and your brother done?”

The exchange from a few minutes ago replayed itself in Dean’s mind, and Dean almost laughed aloud when the final pieces came together. “It wasn’t us… it was Jae. Mehujael. He must’ve changed ‘em so they’d let you in. But what the Hell was in that thing he gave me?”

“A needle, coated in poison. Such things were often used as ancient traps for the unwary and overcurious.” Castiel regarded the box for a moment, his eyes serious. “This Mehujael… he is Caine’s great-grandson?”

“Yeah.” Dean glanced at the box again, then back at Castiel. With the distraction of shock and confusion melting away, he felt his eyes widen again as awe at what he was seeing replaced them. “And he’s apparently got a way better sense of humor than the old man.”

“What do you mean?”

Unable to answer right away, Dean just stood and stared at the angel. He could understand now why, in the months after Gabe’s disappearance, Sam had been so adamant that his lover had been an angel despite the apparent lack of proof. The fires of the lamplight were reacting with Castiel’s grace, casting him in a glowing, living nimbus and highlighting the edges of the eldritch shadows that were his guardian’s wings, sweeping in graceful arches from the angel’s back.

“They don’t know I can see you right now, do they?” Dean asked, bypassing the angel’s question.

Castiel’s eyes widened briefly, and then he nodded almost in wonder. “I wouldn’t have been here even this long if they could. Caine’s wards must be hiding us from them.” Slowly, as if reaching into Hellfire, Castiel’s right hand came up to hover just a whisper above Dean’s chest. “They can’t see us...”

Dean’s heartbeat thrummed in his ears as he stepped closer, Castiel’s hand coming to rest over his heart. “Which means we can do whatever we want.”

In a heartbeat, the angel’s arms wrapped around his neck, and Dean let the world tilt around him as their mouths fused together, desperate and devouring. Vaguely, Dean could smell the must of the strange bed they’d landed on, could feel the dips and curves of it beneath his back as Castiel’s weight came to rest against his hips, his knees shifting open to let it settle more comfortably where he wanted it most.

“Please…” It was a groan swallowed between their mouths, a gravelled mess of urgency. “Please, Dean… just this once…”

“Fuck, yeah…” Dean ground up into the angel’s hips, fingers groping for the edges of the shirt he wore and pulling it up until he could get at the skin beneath. “Fuck me, angel… come on…”

A growl vibrated against Dean’s lips as Castiel kissed him, deep and demanding; Dean’s hands palmed at Castiel’s back as it seemed to radiate through him, shivering under his skin like an electrical current and Dean couldn’t help crying out as his entire body seemed to go up in flames, winding around Castiel’s and dragging him closer and oh…

The strange, shimmering wave had left them both naked, the angel’s need slippery against Dean’s own. “Fuck, that’s hot,” Dean panted, his mouth freed only because Castiel had turned his lips’ attention to the curve of the human’s throat.

“Dean…” It was a whisper in the hollow where his pulse beat, Castiel’s hands skating along his skin as though afraid they would brand him again if they settled. “I don’t…”

“Need me to steer you around the curves, Cas?” The tease earned him a sharp, pinching bite at the base of his collarbone, driving a low cry of want from Dean’s throat even as more saline blurted between them. “Or have you been watching then, too?”

“I never-”

The protest was cut off as Dean lunged with all of his weight, surprising Castiel and rolling them until the angel was spread out beneath him, his knees bracketing Castiel’s flanks and their erections grinding together as Dean bent and captured his mouth in an open kiss, deep and wet with promise. “Because that’s kinda hot,” he murmured, delighting in the way Castiel’s eyes widened in response.

Words stolen from Castiel’s mouth, Dean straightened and shifted until his guardian could see all of him: sculpted arms and broad shoulders, flecked by scars and freckles. Abdominals that flexed and jumped as he moved that melted into narrow hips and a gentle pudge that testified to his love of good food and cheap beer. Arousal curving away from the nest of sandy curls between his powerful thighs, braced apart by Castiel’s body and leaving the mark Castiel had left on him clearly visible.

A mating mark, Caine had called it. This angel, who had saved his life before they’d ever spoken a word to one another, had tied himself to Dean without demanding anything in return. Only seeking to protect and love from the shadows because that was all he’d believed he would ever be permitted to have.

It left Dean feeling almost drunk as he reached down and took himself in hand, watching Castiel’s throat bob at the sight. “Too bad we don’t have any lube,” he teased, breathless with the intoxicating power of what was happening between them. “You could watch me open myself up… you’ve seen it before, Cas; I know you have… except this time it’d be you I’d go down on…

“Or would you rather do it?” He watched the angel’s hands twitch restively, as if Castiel was forcing himself to not touch. “Get those fingers nice and wet… slide ‘em right up in and get me ready for you… hold me down and work me up until I’m begging for it…”

As quickly as he’d moved, Castiel was quicker: flipping them back down again and sealing his mouth around one of Dean’s nipples for a lightening-sharp bite that left Dean gasping. “You don’t beg,” Castiel growled, pushing Dean’s thighs apart as he selected another sensitive patch of skin and pinched his teeth into it. “None of them have ever touched you deep enough.”

Dean’s entire body trembled as fingers brushed along the seam of his backside, trailing something slick in their wake. “I knew you fucking watched,” he teased, the last syllable shaking out as the taut muscle hidden there was breached by just the barest tip of a finger.

“May the Father forgive my faults and failures in His service.” Before Dean could so much as quirk an eyebrow, Castiel drew his tongue up the long vein of Dean’s erection as he pushed one finger up to the base knuckle into Dean’s body without a trace of uncertainty.

Banter was impossible. Thought dissolved under the angel’s touch, a half-formed taunt firing across the back of Dean’s mind as Castiel did exactly what Dean had proposed: one finger became two, then three, every increase slicker than the last as he stretched Dean’s body wide for what felt like forever. A faster learner than Dean could have predicted, Castiel noted the way he let out a stuttering plea for more when his fingertips brushed the bundle of nerves deep inside and returned to it at random: massaging in deep circles one moment, retreating in favor of scissoring Dean’s muscles into pliancy and only grazing the edge of it the next.

It left Dean trembling wreck even as Castiel’s free arm was braced over his heart, a subtle pressure on his chest that held Dean in place as if he’d been tied down. And all the while, Castiel was dusting tiny kisses along Dean’s hips, the line of his thighs, tracing just beyond the edges of the handprint scar that marked Dean as his mate. Words in a language Dean didn’t know sometimes drifted out, lost in the deafening roar of Dean’s pulse as the angel drove him to the very brink of orgasm and then backed off, building an aching need in layer upon layer until Dean was almost sobbing his frustration.

“Cas…” It was a whine, high and reedy, his hips riding against Castiel’s fingers as two of them drew lazy circles inside his body, then drew out almost completely. “Dammit, Cas… you’re a fucking tease…”

“Do you want me inside you, Dean?”

There was an earnestness in the question that had Dean’s eyes opening. Castiel hovered over him, watching his face with a strangely intent expression. It slowly dawned on Dean that the hand that had been braced on his chest was lower now, drawn down and curled around his hip, and for all that the way the angel had taken him apart hadn’t been, uncertainty hovered in the deep blue of those eyes.

On instinct, Dean came up until he was on his knees again, Castiel between them and watching his every move. The hypnotic color of them almost disappeared when Dean took the angel’s thus-far neglected erection in hand, the way Castiel’s pupils blew wide as his lips parted on a gasp radiating through the hunter with a renewed sense of his own sensual power. “Yes.”

A shudder drove through Castiel at Dean’s consent, and then those glorious eyes were rolling up as Dean spread his knees a fraction wider and sank down. The blunt head of the angel’s need was an insistent pressure for just long enough to be torture before Dean’s relaxed muscles gave way, and Castiel was buried half-deep into his human’s tight heat before either of them knew it had happened.

“Oh, fuck…” Dean’s head tipped back, his entire body buzzing and alive. One hand was gripping at Castiel’s shoulder hard enough to bruise a human in a desperate need to keep himself steady, and both of Castiel’s hands were on his hips in a grip so reverent that Dean’s head swam. “Goddamn, you feel good…”

“Dean…” It trembled out of Castiel’s throat, hot breath stuttering against Dean’s skin. Dean let himself sink just a fraction more, and the sound that Castiel made in response seemed almost punched out. “Beloved…”

“Come on, Cas,” Dean urged again, the hand that had been keeping Castiel’s erection at the right angle coming up so that he could drape both arms around the angel’s neck. “Fuck me like we’ll never get another chance.”

A groan dragged up from the depths of Castiel’s chest, and then he was kissing Dean again as he tipped their bodies down. Dean was on his back again, his legs wrapping around Castiel’s hips and his fingers tangling in night-black hair as Castiel slowly began to rock inside him. Shallow pushes, learning the rhythm that Dean’s body already knew by heart. Deeper and deeper until Dean could feel their hips press flush with every long drive. Careful and sure, stroking into him like Castiel was afraid they might crumble into pieces. Not like Dean was fragile, but like this rare, precious thing between them could somehow be damaged if he brought them together too harshly.

Riding up against one long drive, Dean bore down just enough to rip a ragged shout from Castiel’s throat at the tight, perfect grip Dean’s body had him in. “Give it to me,” he urged against Castiel’s mouth, his own voice wrecked from want. “Wanna feel you for days, Cas…”

“I’m stronger than you think,” Castiel warned. His grip on Dean’s hips was flexing, hovering on the line between caress and possession. It wouldn’t leave bruises.

Dean wanted it to. “So’m I.” He flexed his internal muscles again, and finally sank a bite of his own into the tender lobe of Castiel’s ear. “C’mon, mate,” he dared. “Make me feel it.”

Castiel’s head reared back in shock as the word registered. He stared at Dean and the human stared back, an open challenge cast in the space between their eyes. A challenge that would have obscured everything from anyone other than Castiel.

They were kissing again, Dean’s mouth crushed beneath the angel’s for hot, breathless seconds that made spots dance behind Dean’s eyes. It left his senses reeling when Castiel’s mouth lifted away from his, only a heartbeat before the angel all but pulled out and drove in hard.

It shocked a cry out of Dean that melted into a long moan as he shifted, bringing his left leg up and sliding it over Castiel’s right shoulder. Castiel’s hand wrapped around his thigh to steady him as he leaned into the rhythm, his hips finding a pounding cadence that Dean swore he could feel in his throat. Dimly, he heard himself babbling nonsense encouragement even as Castiel’s left hand threaded into his right and held fast. Almost every third thrust hammered against Dean’s prostate, making him whine and twist beneath his lover for want of more, desperately chasing the climax that seemed just beyond his reach…

“Let go, beloved.” The gravelled growl in his ear made Dean cry out again, the angel’s hand gliding between his thighs to cup firmly around Dean’s steadily-leaking erection. “Let me see you…”

The deep throb in that voice snapped the final tether, and Dean shouted the angel’s name as he shattered beneath him, spilling between them and coating Castiel’s fist. His muscles clamped down on the thick heat pounding into him, and then Castiel was crying out in something like agony as he followed Dean over the edge of the world.

Slowly, achingly, Dean felt his heartbeat return to normal and his breath come more evenly. Castiel hovered above and inside him, his head lolling limply on his neck and his eyes closed against the intensity of his release. Dean could see the delicate lashes that framed them more easily now that their color was hidden away, could feel the soft twitches inside him as their bodies settled back into themselves.

For long moments, they didn’t speak. Words felt too small. Dean’s left leg slid off Castiel’s shoulder and Castiel reluctantly shifted until he pulled free of Dean’s body with a soft, wet sound that somehow embarrassed them both. It was only then that Castiel ventured to meet Dean’s eyes, his own once again strangely uncertain.

_Or maybe not so strange._ Reaching up, Dean let his hands frame the angel’s face and he brushed a sweeter kiss than he could ever remember giving anyone over those soft mauve lips. “Come here,” he beckoned gently.

It seemed like the most natural thing in the world for Castiel to fit himself down against Dean’s slightly-longer frame, his head coming to rest in the curve of Dean’s shoulder as he nestled in. Despite the fact that Dean had no idea how long Sam would be gone, or how quickly they’d have to move once Sam’s conversation with Caine came to a head, he found himself closing his eyes as Castiel gave a soft sigh of contentment. _Just for a minute,_ he told himself. _We can stay here... just… just for one more minute…_


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a lot of ground covered in this chapter, guys, but it's the long climb towards the top of the roller coaster, so I hope you'll all enjoy it and it doesn't drag too much for anyone! Please see the series page for acknowledgments, warnings, notes & fanmix. ♥

~ooooOOOoooo~

Much as Dean was enjoying the surprisingly comfortable silence as he and Castiel rested against one another, his mind wouldn’t shut down enough to drift in it forever. “Why didn’t the mark tip ‘em off?” he asked finally. The question had been nagging at him since Caine had identified what the hand-shaped scars he and Sam bore actually were, and the window of opportunity to ask could close at any moment.

Castiel lifted his head from Dean’s chest, and then he shifted, propping himself up to better see his beloved’s face. “We were never forbidden to love humans, Dean; only from interacting with them or imposing our will upon them without divine purpose. Given Azazel’s interest in Sam, it’s likely Michael initially believed that Gabriel’s mark was intended to warn demons away from him.”

“Is that what they thought yours was on me: just a ‘hands off’ sign for any demons I might run across?” When the angel blushed a faint, rosy pink, Dean couldn’t help grinning in response. “What?”

“My… attachment to you did not escape my superiors’ notice,” Castiel confessed. “It’s generally believed that I became… over-excited when I marked your thigh while healing you, but it was overlooked, given my scrupulous circumspection in guarding you”

Dean’s grin grew wider. “Over-excited, huh?”

“Not like that,” Castiel retorted sharply. When the defensive remark only increased the teasing sparkle in Dean’s eyes, though, the angel’s eyes narrowed, and then his right hand curled deliberately over Dean’s thigh. His thumb stroked slowly along the edge of his handprint, and the frisson of grace that trailed in its wake shot directly to Dean’s groin.

The smile that Dean’s unabashed moan drew across Castiel’s lips was almost smug. “But seeing you like this makes me wish it could’ve been.” He continued to let his thumb drift along the edges of the scar, and Dean was fully erect in moments, squirming under the angel’s attentions. “I much prefer the feel of your life’s blood pumping _within_ your veins… and the smoothness of your unbroken skin…”

“Pretty smooth talker,” Dean panted. He reached up and hooked his hands under the angel’s arms, hauling until the angel was sprawled atop him and Dean could seal their mouths together, moaning into the kiss as he felt Castiel’s renewed arousal alongside his own.

They rutted against each other, Dean’s legs twining around Castiel’s for leverage and one of his hands slipping between them to wrap around them both. Castiel groaned and shuddered as Dean taught him how to ride his fist, whispering encouragement between voracious kisses until they were both shaking apart from the force of their orgasms.

The fingers of Dean’s free, not-sticky hand twined through the angel’s hair and traced along the lines of his shoulder blades as they came back down, staring at each other. “When we get this done,” he promised, “you an’ me are gonna have a serious problem.”

Castiel’s expression became grave. “I know,” he acknowledged. “There has never been a Fallen that has not become a demon.”

It was _not_ the response Dean had expected. His eyes shot wide and then he was pushing at Castiel until they were both upright. “What? No! That’s…” He threw an annoyed face at the angel. “Jesus, Cas: haven’t you ever heard of pillow talk?”

“Since I don’t sleep, there have never been pillows involved in my conversations before.”

The angel was so serious that Dean tried to not groan. “I take it angels are all business after sex.”

If he hadn’t been watching it happen, Dean would never have guessed how absolutely charming his guardian looked when he blushed all over. “I… wouldn’t know. I’ve never had occasion… before now.”

It took Dean all of thirty seconds to realize that his mouth was hanging open. Mostly because he was fairly certain he’d been numb from shock until a hot, possessive thrill swept through him when the thought sank in and made itself at home.

Castiel was growing stiffer and more uncomfortable with every heartbeat. A human would probably have been fidgeting, but the angel was disappearing into a mask like a statue. Launching across the inches between them, Dean startled the angel out of his stone-face by climbing into his lap, fisting his hands into that mussed raven hair and kissing him for all he was worth.

“Gonna teach you everything,” Dean promised, the words half-swallowed even as Castiel met Dean’s passion with his own. “When this is all over, Fallen or not, you an’ me are gonna disappear someplace nice and private and you’re gonna have all the ‘occasion’ you can stand. Gonna find out what makes you scream, angel… I sweartagod I’m gonna find out what makes you _sing_...”

They were back down on the mattress again. Castiel’s fingers were pressing into Dean’s willing body, slick with something that Dean still didn’t know the source of, and then Dean’s eyes were rolling up into his head and he was gripping at Castiel’s hair almost hard enough to rip it out as the angel pushed in to the hilt.

“With any luck, beloved,” he murmured, the words curling darkly into Dean’s ear, “we will both live long enough for you to make good on that promise.”

* * *

It seemed like it had taken Sam forever to find the seam in the wall. It was sheer luck that he had, really: his candle had been in his eye line when the flame had swayed in a faint breeze and then blown out. If he hadn’t been paying attention, he would never have realized that the door to Caine’s hidden apartments had been left open just a bare fraction, allowing for the curl of wind that had extinguished his only light source.

Not wanting to waste time lighting the candle again, Sam had ducked into the passage, leaving the door just the barest sliver open in case Dean needed to come find him. The stone wall was cool beneath his hand as he used it as a guide in the darkness, making his way with careful, nearly silent steps up to Caine’s apartments.

“My great-grandson oversteps his bounds.”

The quiet voice sounded as if it was right beside him, startling Sam for a moment before he realized it was simply carrying from the balcony. The ancient man was standing alone, silhouetted against the violet mountain twilight, back to Sam and face turned up towards a sky already brilliant with stars.

How strange it was, in that moment, for Sam to realize that this man who so hated the angels should have so much in common with them.

“By trying to help us?” Sam asked, joining Caine before the elder might feel compelled to come in. The night was cool and crisp in contrast to the perpetual smoke that hung in the air inside, and Sam took a deep, pleasant breath of it. “It’s beautiful out here.”

“It has its charms,” Caine agreed, a smile coming softly into his voice. “There are places more breathtaking in this realm, but few more peaceful.”

“Back in California, Gabriel used to like taking me for picnics on nights like this.” The words made the immortal stiffen, but Sam forged ahead anyway. He had to try, and the way Caine’s isolation seemed to mirror Gabriel’s gave him a place to start. “He had this ‘67 Stingray with an L88 engine, and we’d drive way outside the city… or sometimes he’d sneak us up into Arastradero Preserve. He liked to watch the meteor showers while Abraxas tried to intimidate the local wildlife.”

“Do you seek that I should pity him?” Caine asked, his voice tight with anger. “Should I change my decision because he left you with pleasant memories of your liaison?”

“I don’t want us to have to fight our way through this place,” Sam replied calmly. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he questioned what made him so certain that he wouldn’t provoke Caine’s temper enough to be in any real danger. Was it Mehujael’s confident assurance that this man was not the selfish murderer that the legends had made him out to be? Or was it a resemblance to Dean that he thought he’d glimpsed when they’d spoken earlier? “We will if we have to, because I won’t let anything stop me from freeing Gabriel from Heaven’s prison. But I don’t want to make you an enemy, Caine. So I’m going to say anything I can think of to try and change your mind before we have to do this the hard way.”

For a tense moment, Caine studied Sam, eyes narrowed. Before Sam could think to react, his expression relaxed and he shook his head with a soft laugh. “What?” Sam asked, not understanding the shift.

“You are so very young, is all.” Caine chuckled again. “Born to be a pawn in immortal games, and yet you stand here with the temerity to claim a place as a player instead when you have no understanding of their scope.” Sam eyes darkened, but Caine’s condescension never wavered. “You’ve woken the cherubic powers in your blood; that much anyone can tell. But I doubt you have much, if any, control over them, and certainly not enough to pose any threat to me or the integrity of my holdfast. You will leave this place when and through what door I choose, Samuel Winchester. And I will not allow you to engage in a quest that will only bring you ruin when you cannot even clearly see the one you seek to rescue.”

“What the Hell does that mean?” Sam demanded, starting to lose control of his own temper.

“Did you know that one of Gabriel’s titles among the Host is ‘Prince of the Cherubim’?”

“No; what does that have to-” The question broke off as Sam’s mind stumbled over the information, a connection clicking into place and flaring to horrible, damning life again in his mind.

Caine watched almost impassively as all color drained from Sam’s face in the wake of comprehension. “Yes, Sam: Gabriel was the archangel to whom all cherubim ultimately answered. Being the Archangel of Judgment was far from the only reason he was the one sent to punish the crimes of the Grigori.”

The words fell like blows, and Sam sank down onto the settee behind him, almost dizzy at the implications.

“Now do you understand why I cannot let you pass into my father’s lands?” Caine asked as he went and crouched beside Sam, gauging the way the younger man’s mind tumbled over his revelation. “You and your brother are the keys to Lucifer’s freedom. By drawing you into an affair, Gabriel completely blocked his former cherub’s access to you… and by extension, to your brother.”

“It wasn’t like that,” Sam choked; even he could hear the lack of conviction in his voice. “He… we were good together… happy.” His eyes lifted to Caine’s. “He _cared_ about me. I know he did.”

“History is littered with the corpses of those who thought they could control what happens when you mix passion with palace intrigue,” Caine pointed out reasonably. “The war between the angels has never really been over, Sam; it’s merely in a stalemate, with both sides trying to prepare for the day when the balance will tip and the battle must be joined anew. I can offer you and your brother protection from it; I can counsel you on how to stay well clear of it. But there is no advice I can offer… no hole deep enough for you to hide in... if you insist on taking the path you want me to let you walk. It can only end in blood and death, unless you turn back now.”

For a handful of long, terrible heartbeats, Sam sat half-doubled over on the settee, his eyes unseeing as he tried to make himself comprehend what Caine had told him. Every conversation struggled to reframe itself. Every time he’d been about to pose a question about Gabriel’s kind only to be smoothly diverted. Every doubt born in the wake of Castiel telling them the truth of Yellow Eyes’ identity was roaring back to life, more damning than before.

And then just as before, in the midst of confusion, the words came back as clearly as when they’d first been spoken. “There are no rainbows in the darkness.”

Caine’s expression knitted, his posture drawing up slightly in confusion. “What?”

“Something he said to me once,” Sam told him, his own spine uncurling. The paralysis of doubt was falling away, leaving him once again certain of what he needed to do. “My mother never wanted us to know what it was like for her growing up, you know. She’d been raised as a hunter, and she hated that life; hated the way it was full of darkness and blood and death and horror. She tried to protect us from that world by keeping her past a secret, but I kept seeing Azazel in my dreams, and it got to the point where the only way she could protect us was to show us what was in the dark, teach us how to live there as well as in the light.”

Sighing, Caine stood up away from Sam. “Your mother’s inability to protect you by depriving you of information doesn’t apply here, Sam. This is a choice you are making with your eyes open.”

“But that’s just it,” Sam argued. “Trying to run away from this isn’t going to work; whether our eyes are open or shut while we’re doing it doesn’t matter.”

“Only if you believe it doesn’t.” Caine stood his ground even as Sam edged closer. “My grandfather gifted humanity with free will, Sam. You have the right to walk off His chessboard. I did. I can show you how.”

All at once, Sam had the answer. “That was His gift,” he countered. “But what’s our birthright?”

The question made Caine stiffen again. “You really are far too clever for your own good,” he finally muttered.

“The birthright your parents refused to be denied,” Sam pressed. “It was the fruit, right?”

“Knowledge of Good and Evil.” The words sounded as though they’d left a sour taste in Caine’s mouth. “My mother was created to be my father’s companion, and his thoughts often turned to the one tree in all of Eden that was forbidden to him. She wanted to know more about the tree and what it bore, thinking to ease his mind. And if there was a punishment to be born for touching or eating of it...” There was a hitch in his voice, an old pain that still cut deep on behalf of one loved more dearly than anyone might have guessed. “Well, she wasn’t the first woman made, was she? If she was to be struck down for it, surely YHWH could make yet a third to be my father’s comfort.”

“But she wasn’t.” Sam followed the line easily now, almost able to see it drawn from the ache in Caine’s voice. “And she showed your father, and he took what was his, and they were sent out of Eden and into the world… to a place with darkness and death... blood and sadness and fear.” When Caine said nothing, merely looked away and out into the place beyond the balcony’s edge, Sam felt his heart twist in sympathy. “Caine…”

“You can still turn away, Sam.” He walked over to the edge of the balcony, his hands gripping at the balustrade that separated them from the open air. “There was no serpent. That was an invention of old men that wanted to paint women as weak and easily led astray; a way to affirm their own misogyny and fear. My mother knew there was a risk, but she thought she would be the only one to pay the cost when she took it. You know better.”

Sam came to stand beside him; he leaned his back against the balustrade and balanced with his elbows, letting him almost look Caine in the face as they spoke. “Dean… doesn’t think I know this,” Sam started slowly. “Back when I was about… five, my parents separated for a while. Dad… he didn’t move out exactly, but just took the car one day and didn’t come back until right before my sixth birthday. I was just a little kid at the time; I barely remember it, except for how sad Mom was and how mad Dean would get at him for making her sad.

“Mom died when I was sixteen, and Dad got himself killed in a drunk car accident not too long after I graduated high school. Dean handled everything; he didn’t want me to be distracted from getting ready for my freshman year at Stanford any more than I already was. But he was in six different directions at once, and there were times when the lawyer would call and Dean would be out doing something, so I was the one that had to get the paperwork.”

“Is there a point to this coming along anytime soon?” Caine sniped, his tone impatient.

“That year our dad was gone? He had an affair.” There was no reaction; Sam hadn’t expected there to be. “With some nurse in Minnesota. He got her pregnant and she kept the baby. He made the child support payments out of his business accounts from the garage as if she was a silent partner.”

Something in Caine’s demeanor rearranged itself. “Again… is there a point?”

“He’s about fifteen now.” Sam had him. He could see it. “Our brother. He’s a normal kid, going to high school and probably just starting to think about things like college and girls and what his life will look like when he’s out on his own. But he’s still our brother, which means that if we walk off the chessboard and Michael can’t have Dean if the time comes, Adam’s next in line. And he hasn’t spent half his life learning about the supernatural, which means he won’t know what’s happening until it’s too late.”

Caine turned his head just slightly. Silently regarded Sam for what seemed like an age.

“Free will means no fate but what we make,” Sam said, watching the words reflecting in Caine’s still-shadowed eyes. “But if you’ve been protected from knowing what you’re choosing between, you’re not really the one making the choice, are you?”

It was a long moment before Caine spoke again. “One last chance, Sam: you are making _this_ choice with your eyes wide open. And you know that the cost won’t be yours alone to pay.”

“No matter what choices we make, someone else is always going to pay part of the cost, Caine.” Sam had never felt more sure of anything in his life. “Your brother knew that when he convinced you to offer him as your sacrifice. And that’s why he’s still with you now.”

“You know nothing of that but what I’ve told you,” Caine snarled, pushing away from the balcony wall.

“I know what it’s like to have an older brother,” Sam countered. “One that means everything to you. One you’d do anything for, because he’s a part of you and you spend your whole life trying to be sure that he feels the same. If it had been Dean and I in your places? I’d give up whatever paradise is supposed to come after to stay with him, too, because every inch of the guilt that would eat him alive for the rest of his life would be my fault.”

“And when that life lasts for centuries?” Caine snapped back. “Millennia? How long would your devotion be without resentment, Sam? How long would you stay unaffected by the inability to move on, denied the rest you deserve because an archangel has cursed the brother responsible for your state to a life that has no expiration?”

“What would’ve happened if you had died?” Sam asked back. The question startled the ancient man, but Sam stayed where he was. “If Gabriel hadn’t cursed you to eternity and you’d died refusing to accept forgiveness for what you did, what would’ve happened?”

“My soul would likely have been cast into the Pit,” Caine replied, his voice more puzzled than angry now. “And my brother would’ve moved on to Heaven, as he died in Grandfather’s favor and without any blemish upon his soul.”

“Which means you would’ve been separated,” Sam concluded. “And he’d’ve been forced to spend an eternity without you.”

Understanding seemed to wash through Caine, draining away his anger and leaving him staring in wonder. Just behind his right shoulder, Sam saw a flicker of an outline; the barest hint of a man’s shape; and a hand reaching in to wind into Caine’s and hold fast.

_Brother_ , he thought he heard. A whisper in the darkness.

And then Caine was moving again, coming to stand beside Sam and placing a hand on his shoulder. “You are very much like him,” the immortal told him softly. “I fear what that means for you. But as my brother would not be swayed, so neither will you be. I am left with no more choice now than I was then.” When Sam’s brow furrowed in question, the pressure on his shoulder became an urging to move. “Turn around.”

Sam did as he was bid, his eyes on Caine as he came around to face the open ground beyond the balcony and a question forming on his tongue. Caine gestured before he could voice it. “Look, Sam. Look… and see.”

Confused, Sam again did as Caine commanded.

From the crest of the trail they’d hiked to find this place, the entire valley in which the monastery was nestled had been visible. There had been little in the way of vegetation, given the climate and fractional amount of sun that reached the valley floor even in the peak of the day. Meditation labyrinths had been marked into the earth with stone and there were a few outbuildings for the slaughter of animals and the preparation of their meat, but other than those, there was nothing in the valley to rival the monastery complex.

Gazing out, Sam could see an expanse of verdant plain. There were no mountains in sight; only the green of plants left to grow wild, and beyond them…

“The Watchtower,” Sam breathed.

A great citadel, the Eastern Watchtower rose up from the plain in a spire of light and grace, stretching up so high that Sam almost couldn’t see the top save for the beacon blazing at its peak. A great, shimmering wall extended away from it on either side, so vast that it seemed endless, shifting and pulsing as if it was alive and reflecting colors that Sam wasn’t sure he’d ever seen before as he watched.

Almost unable to tear his eyes away, Sam’s head turned to Caine for a fraction of a second before the spectacle drew his gaze back. “It’s been right outside all this time?”

“I told you, Sam,” Caine reminded him softly. “You may only leave this place when and through what door I choose.”

“But…” Sam tore his gaze away from the Watchtower again to look at him. “How…?”

“You have little enough time to accomplish your quest,” Caine told him. “Too little to become engrossed in the magicks I have learned and the cost I paid to acquire them. Perhaps, someday, you and your brother will return to this place without purpose compelling your steps, and I will give you leave to indulge your curiosity.”

Reaching up, Sam put his left hand on Caine’s right shoulder and gripped tight. “Caine… thank you. You can’t know… I…”

“You have more trials before you than this, Sam, and many far more dangerous than tempting an old man’s intransigence.” He smiled, and then released Sam and stepped towards the threshold that led into his rooms. “Go and fetch his brother,” Caine told the monk that waited within. Sam startled at the realization, wondering how long the man had been silently watching. “The angel Castiel will be with him. And bring my great-grandson, while you’re about it. I want to have a word with him.”

Sam was gaping when the older man turned back around, shocked by the idea that Castiel had somehow been allowed inside. “You asked how it was that Mehujael overstepped his bounds; you didn’t know that he’d altered my wards so that your brother could seduce Castiel while we were otherwise occupied?” When Sam stammered in response, Caine laughed: a more open, delighted sound than he’d yet heard come from the ancient man’s throat. “My great-grandson is an incurable romantic, I’m afraid. He doesn’t think I know about he and Brother Molochai, either.”

“You… you’re not going… he’s not in trouble, is he?” Sam finally managed. They knew almost nothing about him, but Jae had been an ally unlooked for, and Sam couldn’t help feeling a protective surge at the thought of what Caine might do in response to an angel being allowed inside his sanctuary.

“I won’t bring him to harm, Sam,” Caine assured him. “And if it were any angel other than Castiel, I might mind more than I do. But I haven’t always lived in this place, and am well acquainted with the way passion denied can burn under the skin like living flame. It was much that way between my Collette and I, before she consented to be mine.”

There was a bittersweetness in the words; a grief not nearly so damaging as that he felt for his and his brother’s fates. “When we come back,” Sam ventured gently. “Will you tell me about her?”

Caine’s answering smile was sad. “ _If_ you come back,” he answered just as softly, “I will tell you anything you wish to know.”

* * *

It wasn’t long before Dean and Castiel joined them. There was a vaguely abashed expression around Dean’s eyes as they came in, and Sam groaned inwardly. He knew what his brother was like in the blush of new lust, and if the way their bodies seemed to gravitate together was any indication, Castiel wasn’t going to be disposed to limit the exuberance of Dean’s libido.

The greeting that passed between Caine and Castiel was grave, silent but for the deep murmurs of each other’s names. Too much history between them, perhaps, for the courtesies usually observed between humans to be necessary or wanted.

“Once you cross the base of the stairs,” Caine told them, gesturing to an exit staircase that had also appeared now that Caine’s protective illusion was no longer in place, “ten paces will put you beyond my wards and you will be able to cross to the Watchtower.” He looked at Dean. “Are you certain that you want to let him do this?”

“Ain’t ever been any stopping Sammy when there’s something he’s set on doing,” Dean replied, his eyes straying to the spectacle of the Watchtower on the horizon. “Better to stick by him and watch his six than try and stop him and end up with him sneaking off to do whatever it is with no backup.”

Caine nodded. His gaze fixed on Castiel again, and something wordless once again passed between them. Castiel nodded in response. “This will be remembered, Qa-yin,” he told the immortal seriously.

“I hope so.” Stepping back, Caine gestured to the stairs. “Go, then: all of you. And good luck.”

Conscious of the strangeness of his presence in the monastery, and perhaps a little discomfited by Caine’s wards without the distraction of Dean’s naked flesh, Castiel descended first and stepped past the wards’ boundary in a few strides. Dean started after him, but turned back a few steps down. “Thanks, Jae… you’re all right.”

“Good luck, Dean,” Mehujael replied, standing almost nervously near the threshold between Caine’s receiving room and the balcony. “You, too, Sam.”

Sam smiled, clasping Mehujael’s hand, and then he was following his brother down the stairs and onto the plains beyond, anticipation building in his veins as they joined Castiel across the boundary line.

Dean looked at Sam, then Castiel. “No turning back now,” he affirmed, trying to sound more confident than he felt. “We better start walking.”

Castiel shook his head and took hold of one of each brother’s wrists. “No need,” was all he said, and then reality was bending around them again.

* * *

If possible, the Eastern Watchtower was even more intimidating up close than it was from the view of Caine’s balcony. It took Sam a moment between the disorientation from their flight and the goggle that he felt at being so close to one of Heaven’s garrisons… close enough to reach out and touch the walls that were made of light somehow bent to form and more solid than stone… before he realized that the gate itself was opening, and another angel was stepping through to greet them.

“Hadriel.” Castiel’s greeting was no less solemn than it had been to Caine, but there was something indefinably different about it as well: something that spoke of long-standing camaraderie, of likeness of being and purpose. Of an understanding that only comes from being among one’s own kind.

“Castiel.” The angel’s voice was cool and gentle, like the sound of a lake lapping against the shore under a summer sun. “You shouldn’t have brought them here. What can you possibly be thinking?”

“We need you to let us in,” Sam pleaded quickly.

“Impossible.” Hadriel turned to the younger Winchester, dark skin smooth as marble except for the creases of consternation at the corners of seafoam green eyes. “You know not what it would mean if I did… nor even your own mind. What Gabriel has done-”

“Ain’t what everybody thinks,” Dean cut in smoothly. “He didn’t angel-roofie my brother.”

“Please, Hadriel,” Sam asked again. “He didn’t do that to me. It’s my fault he’s imprisoned right now; I doubted him for just a minute and now he’s… I can’t just leave him there to suffer when it’s my fault.”

Another angel joined them. There was a spike in activity inside the gate; Dean tensed at the sense of it, preparing to fight their way through if need be. “Hadriel, what’s going on? Castiel? Why have you brought the Vessels here?”

“They seek permission to enter the Silver City,” Hadriel explained. “To free Gabriel from his sentence.”

“Impossible,” Gazardiel said, echoing Hadriel’s initial response. Wings of deep indigo flared and twitched in agitation at the thought. “Michael would have all of our pinions if we allowed it.”

“He claims that Gabriel didn’t suborn him with his powers,” Hadriel went on. The angel was eyeing Sam carefully, something assessing and strangely sympathetic in his eyes. “If that’s true…”

“It _is_ ,” Sam insisted. “I swear it is.”

“How can we possibly be sure of that?” Gazardiel insisted.

Swallowing hard, Sam straightened just a little. Dean watched his brother gearing up to admit what had happened and took a step forward, suddenly unwilling to let Sam keep taking the blame alone. “I got in his head,” Dean confessed. He saw Sam startle, ignored it, focusing on the two angels. “Sammy was head-over-heels for the guy, but he was never around when I was. When I finally wrangled it out of Sam that Gabe wasn’t human, but that he didn’t know _what_ kind of not-human, I got in his head and convinced him to call Gabe’s bluff about not being allowed to be seen with the lights on. I couldn’t have done that if he’d used some kind of angel-whammy to turn Sam into his love-slave.”

Castiel watched his fellow seraphim trying to process the information, as strangely phrased as they found it. “I am satisfied that Sam was not being compelled by Gabriel in any way,” he added. “And the mating mark Sam bears speaks for itself. Please, Hadriel… Gazardiel… they only seek to put right the harm they feel they’ve caused. I will take full responsibility.”

For a long moment, Gazardiel and Hadriel were silent, their gazes drifting from human to angel to human again as they considered. Sam wasn’t sure he would ever breathe again, waiting for the pin to drop. For them to be admitted, or denied entry. If this approach failed, they would likely never get another chance.

“Please,” he heard himself saying. “Hadriel, please: I love him. Even if he doesn’t feel the same, I can’t just leave him in there and go on with my life. He doesn’t deserve that.”

Gazardiel looked down at Hadriel. Saw the moment when Sam’s words finally swayed the gate’s keeper to their cause. “I will not be able to protect you if this does not go well,” he warned gently.

“I would never ask you to,” Hadriel answered. “My actions are my own, Gazardiel.”

“Stubborn.” It was said fondly, and then the shorter angel stepped aside. “Go on, then, Castiel… but I think I will be sorry when I hear what comes of this.”

“I hope you’ll be proven wrong,” was all Castiel said, and then he was leading the brothers to the portal, into the swirling morass of light…

* * *

When the light faded and his vision cleared, Dean blinked as his surroundings began to register. Rather than the inside of a military garrison as he might have imagined, or even a city street, he was standing in a room that looked like something from a movie set in eighteenth-century France. Low couches along the walls. A table laid out with candelabras and food. Paintings and icons hanging in niches on the walls, each depicting images of angels. Turning, confused, he opened his mouth to ask Castiel where they were…

He was alone. No Sam. No Castiel. No doors or windows. Just the strange room surrounding him, and the sound of empty silence.

Striding towards one of the walls, his fingertips gingerly touched the surface. It felt solid enough, and his palms flattened to feel for seams, secret panels, anything that might yield a way out. Something had gone wrong… he knew in his bones something had gone wrong and he had to get to Cas and Sam…

A tiny flutter. Dean turned to find a stranger standing behind him, armored in gold over crimson silk. His nut brown eyes were calm, his mouth set in an expectant line, and his bearing was every inch a battle-hardened commander.

“Michael,” Dean ventured, something deep telling him it was true without needing confirmation.

The faintest twitch at the corners of that mouth. The beginnings of a smile. “Hello, Dean.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For everyone that celebrates them, Happy Passover & Easter! For everyone else, I hope you're having a beautiful weekend!
> 
> As always, please see the series page for complete notes, acknowledgements, warnings and fanmix.

~ooooOOOoooo~

The Winchesters weren’t dead.

He couldn’t sense where they were, but Castiel could still feel both of the Winchesters’ pulses beating in his heart. Quick from anxiety, but strong and steady. Both of the Winchesters were still alive.

He should have anticipated something like this; realistically, it was the simplest strategy Heaven could have taken in the matter. Stepping through the gate one at a time made them easy to pick off, to quarantine and deal with separately. It was the weakest point in their plan, overall, and one there had been no way to plan a defense against.

Dean was still alive, wherever he was. Which meant that he would be returned to Earth unharmed, no matter what happened next.

It was that thought to which Castiel anchored as he turned to face the angel into whose presence he’d been carried the moment he’d crossed the threshold of the Eastern Watchtower. Hair and wings like burnished bronze, with eyes as dark as a night without stars: a stark contrast to the pearl white of his skin. “I have to say, brother,” the angel said, voice deceptively mild. “Even given your attachment to your charge, I never expected this. Not from you.”

_Dean is alive. That’s all that matters._ “I hadn’t expected it to be you, Kushiel,” he replied calmly.

A smile of bronze-tinged lips. “Not everything is as it appears, Castiel. Even in Heaven.”

* * *

Blinking in confusion, Sam found himself gazing out across a vast, open ocean as his senses realigned themselves. The gentle lapping of the water blended seamlessly into the choral adulation that once again filtered into Sam’s mind; confirmation that his previous dreams had indeed been some kind of astral journeying rather than just visions.

But he hadn’t expected to find an ocean in Heaven. Or to be alone on its edge when his brother and Castiel had gone through to gate before him.

Tearing his eyes away from the almost-hypnotic ebb and flow of the water, Sam fought to breathe normally and assess his surroundings. He was standing atop a great wall, crystal clear and stretching for miles to either side of him. The thickness of it almost suggested that it was some kind of dam, and when he fully turned away from the water, the impression was reinforced when he could see several places where the crystalline matrix sloped down in long, gently curved buttresses.

He needed to get down. Regardless of how he’d gotten here, or why he was alone, he couldn’t do anything from atop a giant quartz dam. It dawned on him with some dismay, however, when he realized that there were no access points such as might be found on a human-built dam. Angels had wings; they didn’t need ladders or mechanized lifts to go from the ground to the top and back again.

“`It is the Vessel.`”

Startled by the unexpected voices, Sam spun towards their source. The ultra-smooth surface of the crystal wall lent him more inertia than he’d bargained on and he flailed as he tipped backwards, lost his footing, and plunged over the side towards the unforgiving ground below.

* * *

Dean circled warily, eyeing the archangel across the room. “Where are Sam and Cas?”

“You don’t need to worry,” Michael assured him. The corner of his mouth remained ticked up in a half-smile, as if Dean’s apparent readiness for a fight amused him. “You and Sam will be returned to Earth safely. But I understand you had some things you wanted to say to me, so I thought we’d take the opportunity of you having gotten this far to have that conversation.”

“Oh, yeah? And how’d you know about that?” There was something about the confidence of the angel’s stance… something that glinted in those almond eyes that raised every hackle down Dean’s spine…

“Come now, Dean,” Michael reproved lightly. “Surely you’ve already deduced that. Why play the mortal game of making me state things you already know when it only wastes the already-short window between us?”

“Where’s Cas?” Dean demanded again.

“He will be judged,” Michael told him, the note of finality in his voice made all the more chilling by the nonchalance that underscored it.

“Like fuck he will.” Dean felt his fists close and he took a menacing step towards the archangel. “You ain’t laying a finger on him.”

Michael had the audacity to chuckle. “Of course I won’t. I am the First, but judgment is not my province. Castiel’s fate is in the hands of another, far from this liminal place.”

Dean could feel his body vibrating with the need to throw a punch. To find a weak place in the walls and batter his way through. To provoke Michael into threatening him so that Castiel would be drawn to his side, where Dean could protect him. “What about Sam?” he asked instead. “What’ve you got planned for him?”

“He will be brought here,” Michael explained. “And you will both be returned home.”

Something in the archangel’s tone still set off alarms in Dean’s mind. His eyes narrowed. “What’s the catch?”

“For your own good, your memories will be altered.” It was said with chilling mildness, as if Michael was discussing the weather. “Once you are returned to Earth, neither you nor Sam will remember any of this: not Gabriel. Not Castiel. Neither Heaven nor Caine nor anything else about these events. Your lives will be your own again, with no traces of seraphic misdeeds left behind to trouble your minds.”

Dean stared at him in horror.

“So I suggest that you take this chance to have your say, Dean,” Michael continued. “Because once you leave this place, you won’t even remember what it was you wanted to tell me.”

* * *

They caught him before he was even halfway to the ground.

Almost in the same instant that Sam understood that he was falling, the angels had changed position, moving as one unit into the path of his descent. Hands as light as air took hold of his body as if he were lying still rather than freefalling in mid-air, and Sam’s mind struggled to catch up as he was lowered gently to the ground.

Ten of them. Each with wings like living magnesium flame, their flowing hair and eyes of molten silver. Their tunics were pure white, the symbols that edged each a different color. They stood in perfect stillness around Sam once they’d set him on his feet, and he found himself turning with growing uneasiness to look at each in turn. “Um… thank you.”

“`You are early.`”

Sam’s brow furrowed. The strange pronouncement was made all the more eerie since all ten angels had spoken in unison, but Sam couldn’t let himself get lost in the curiosity of it. “What do you mean, ‘early’?”

“`You are early. You are yourself.`”

“I’m sorry,” Sam replied, still turning to look at each of the strange new angels in turn. “I don’t know what you mean. How am I early?”

“`You are the Vessel,`” they replied. “`The Seals are still intact. The Morningstar is still Caged. You have not given consent.`”

Realization dawned, and Sam felt a mounting nausea creeping up his throat. “I’m early,” he whispered.

“`You are yourself.`” As one, their heads each tilted to a perfect forty-five degree angle. “`Tell us why.`”

* * *

“I do not understand.” Castiel’s brow furrowed as he held Kushiel’s amused gaze. “Your province is to punish mortal souls.”

“True enough,” Kushiel replied.

“So why are you here instead of Raguel?”

The other angel’s smile drew a little wider, his bronze wings flexing behind his back. “Because not all things called a sin actually are... and unlike so many of our siblings, I understand what it’s like to love a mortal charge too well.”

Castiel’s eyes went wide.

* * *

“I’m here to rescue Gabriel,” Sam told them. “I came with my brother and his guardian angel, Castiel, but we got separated. I need to find them so we can free Gabriel.”

“`They cannot release him,`” the strange new angels told him. Their voices were all still perfectly synchronized; Sam couldn’t help thinking that Dean would be comparing them to the Borg if he was here.

“We have to try,” Sam insisted. He turned around again, looking at each of them in turn. Other than the colors of the sigils on their tunics, there was no way to tell them apart. “Who are you?”

“`We are Sefirot.`”

Their alien stillness never wavered, no matter which way Sam turned. He wasn’t sure if he was imagining things, or if he was starting to discern tiny distinctions within their voice. “I need to find my brother and Castiel so that we can release Gabriel,” Sam repeated. “If you can tell me how to find them-”

“`You will destroy us.`”

Sam blinked. “What?”

All as one, the Sefirot began to move; it belatedly occurred to Sam that their feet weren’t even touching the ground on which he stood, essentially floating in a slow circle around him. “`You will consent. The Morningstar will destroy the Herald. Then the First. Then all the Host in turn. You will destroy us.`”

“I won’t,” Sam promised, bile rising in his throat. “I would never-”

“`You will consent,`” they repeated, still moving as one. “`You will destroy us. The Morningstar will release the Darkness. He will bring the Dark as he once brought the Light. She will destroy him. She will destroy God.`”

“You don’t know that!” Sam shouted. Taking an angry step towards them proved fruitless; they shifted away from him without so much as glance at one another, movements perfectly coordinated. “I’d kill myself before I ever let that happen!”

“`The Morningstar will take you from Death.`” Said so matter of factly, as if resurrecting someone from the dead were as commonplace as healing a papercut. “`You will consent. You will destroy us. The ink is dry.`”

* * *

“You listen to me, you sonuvabitch,” Dean snarled. “No way am I letting you play around with me or Sammy’s memories; I don’t give a shit who you are. Now where the fuck are they?”

“Threatening me won’t do you any good, Dean.” Michael took a slow step, starting to mirror the way Dean moved. Matching his stride until they were circling one another like predators about to vie for the same territory. “You’ve learned nothing about angels that would tell you even how to harm us, or you would have tried to bring such weapons through the gate with you. The only weapon you had was Castiel, and he’s been removed from the equation.”

Dean was watching Michael’s face, tracking the tiny muscle shifts. He suddenly grinned, tight and vicious. “You don’t know where Sam is,” he guessed; the flicker in Michael’s left eye his only confirmation. It was more than enough. “You got me and Cas in your net, but Sammy slipped through somehow, and now you can’t find him. So rather than just Eternal Sunshining me, you’re hanging onto me here as bait.”

“He will seek you out, or he will attempt to find Gabriel and free him on his own,” Michael conceded. “Either way, we will have him back under control soon enough, and you will both be returned to Earth. Say your piece while you still have time, Dean.”

The admission uncurled the fight-ready coil in Dean’s spine. He straightened, spreading his arms wide as having more leverage than he’d anticipated began to sink in. “Y’know, Mike,” he started smoothly, grinning just a little wider at Michael’s obvious irritation over the nickname. “For all that you’ve had a few dozen centuries’ more experience at it, you really don’t know anything about little brothers, do ya?”

“Comparing the Host to mortal familial relationships is far from accurate,” Michael returned coolly. “We aren’t just family; we are also an army. Each one of us is a multi-dimensional wavelength of celestial intent, made to serve His Will.”

“But you’re still the oldest,” Dean countered smoothly. “They’re still your brothers. All of ‘em… even Lucifer.”

“Tread carefully, Dean.” The warning was a soft snarl, his lips half-curled in anger. “You know less than nothing about him, or what has passed between us.”

“I know Sammy drives me up the friggin’ wall some days.” Dean shrugged as they circled, no longer needing to posture for dominance. “I know he’s stubborn, and too damned serious for his own good. He makes decisions that make me wanna shake sense into that college-boy head of his, and worst of all? He keeps it from me when he does, because he knows how I’ll react.”

“And how is any of that relevant?”

“Because none of it means a damn.” The teasing expression on Dean’s face dropped away, his eyes glinting in the light that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere all at once. “Doesn’t matter how crazy he makes me. See, I made him a promise, back when Mom finally quit lyin’ to us about who we were and what Sammy’s dreams meant. I promised him that I’d always keep him safe. I’d learn everything there was to know about hunting, and I’d do whatever it took to make sure that yellow-eyed bastard never got within a mile of him ever again.”

“A promise that you have no capacity to actually keep,” Michael pointed out. “Especially given that Azazel has any number of imps and sycophants that can influence Sam without your even suspecting his involvement.”

“Oh, I suspect everything: that’s why I flipped out over Gabe not being human. Sammy had no idea that he was nailing an archangel, and I don’t put anything past Yellow Eyes when it comes to getting his claws into Sam.” Dean’s smile had a self-mocking slant, even as he watched Michael’s brow knit. “You still don’t believe it, do you? That Sam had no idea he was an angel.”

“Gabriel didn’t need Sam to know in order for him to influence your brother’s mind.”

Michael’s response was almost prim, but there was an undercurrent of doubt that made Dean want to crow in victory. “Now why don’t I believe you?”

* * *

Unwilling to listen any longer, Sam craned his head to see beyond the ring of angels. The crystal dam was vast, stretching as far as he could see in either direction. Across what seemed like a wide stone boulevard was an equally-long wall, with great doors that reminded him of set pieces for movies set in ancient times. Throwing caution to the wind, Sam started for the stone walkway, intent on following it until he found the silver-white building where they were keeping Gabriel or…

He wasn’t really sure what the other options were in terms of where this might lead him. But anything was better than staying in one place listening to more pronouncements about how he was going to let Lucifer use his body to destroy Heaven.

Rather than breaking formation to let him pass, the Sefirot moved with and around him, their silver eyes unblinking. “`You are determined.`”

“You’re damned right I am,” Sam snapped, suddenly furious. “Look, I’m just gonna say this once: the only thing I’ll ever say to Lucifer if the time comes is ‘get fucked’. If you don’t believe that because of some holy prophecy, then there’s nothing else I can do for you. Gabriel’s the only angel I’ve ever met who seems to understand that I know my own mind, and I need to go get him. So either help me find my brother so we can do what we came here to do, or get out of my way.”

The last word of his tirade had barely drifted into the wind when they were suddenly closer. Sam all but stumbled backwards as one of them was practically on top of him, the delicate tip of the angel’s nose barely an inch from his own. “`You have not answered,`” they said, their voices still synchronous.

“Answered what?” Sam demanded.

“`You are early,`” they repeated. “`You are yourself. Tell us why.`”

“I already told you that.” Sam tried to push forward, to move around. The Sefirot had him hemmed in, unable to find an opening unless he was prepared to make one. His temper was starting to fray, a pressure he’d never felt before building up in his fingertips. “I’m here to rescue Gabriel.”

“`Tell us why,`” they repeated again.

“You know why!” Sam shouted. “It’s my fault he’s in prison! I have to get him out!”

“`Tell us why.`”

The pressure was spreading up into his hands now, making them curl into fists against the need to break it. Up his arms, suffocating its way into his chest until he was shaking from the force of it. “Why do you keep asking me that? I’m telling you the truth.”

“`Tell us-`”

“Because I love him!” The pressure crested as the words burst free, breaking loose in a tangible wave of power that swept the Sefirot away from him, scattering them like sparrows in a storm. Sam’s eyes were closed against the exhausting, explosive force of it, his breath ragged and tears burning the corners of his eyes.

When he opened them again, the one that had been nose-to-nose with him was still there. The forest green sigils on the edges of its tunic seemed brighter, somehow, and those silver eyes seemed far less detached than they had before. Its head was tilted in consideration, seemingly unperturbed by the sudden manifestation of Sam’s power or by how the others had been blown around by it like leaves.

Slowly, Sam’s heartbeat came back down to normal as he held that curious, strangely compassionate gaze. It was almost easy to sink into the connection that was forming, as though the angel was reading every thought that had ever passed through his heart.

“You are yourself.” The voice was shockingly singular, almost unbearably soft. And, most surprising of all, it sounded convinced.

A truth so simple that Sam wanted to bury his face in his hands suddenly dawned. “I am,” Sam agreed. “He didn’t do that to me. He didn’t need to.”

The other Sefirot were standing now, gathered beside their comrade. “We believe you.”

* * *

“Know what, Mike?” There was another tic that betrayed Michael’s irritation; Dean couldn’t help savoring it. “You’ve got me wondering: what was it?”

“What was what?” Michael was circling again, eyes narrow and growing more dangerous with every heartbeat.

Dean was matching him step for step. “The promise you broke.”

The archangel’s expression flared at the accusation, his fingers flexing into fists and back again. “I have _never_ broken my word.”

“Yeah, you did.” Dean’s grin was vicious, victorious. He was winning the game, and it was exhilarating. “You wouldn’t be so quick on the trigger with the rest of the angels if you hadn’t.” Something twisted in Michael’s face, almost too fast to see. “It was a big one, too, wasn’t it? You promised Lucifer something, and when the time came, you reneged. And now you’re tryin’ to run Heaven like an army instead of like a family because somehow that’s easier than living with yourself.”

“I’m not you, Dean.” The words were almost gritted out, the archangel’s fists clenching and relaxing again. “Trying to get into my head by implying otherwise isn’t going to get you anything more than threatening me directly would.”

“Yeah, maybe.” Dean shrugged, his eyes lit and his gamine smile firmly in place. “I mean, after all: _I_ wouldn’t have left the back door open.”

Just as he’d predicted, Michael’s gaze shot to the weakest point of the magic barricading them in. What had been a blank wall with a table and candelabra in front of it was now a set of tall, filigreed double doors… and Dean was closer to them than Michael was.

A half-step and he was launched, flinging his entire body at the aperture and crossing his arms over his face to protect it. He could see the magic woven into the barrier starting to seal against him even as seconds dragged into slow-motion and Dean closed his eyes, willing himself to make it…

Impact. The delicate illusion splintering under his weight as he crashed through and landed, rolling on instinct and fighting to keep his breath, to find his feet. “Run,” he ordered himself, scrambling for traction and refusing to let himself look back because the bastard had wings and he didn’t and he needed to get to Sam…

“ _Dean!_ ”

It wasn’t his brother, and it wasn’t Michael. Dean glanced up to his right in time to see Castiel in the air above him, inky wings flared wide and garbed a tunic of midnight black. There was another angel on Castiel’s flank, this one with wings of glittering bronze, and they were both diving straight for him. Without a second’s hesitation, Dean put on a burst of additional speed and threw his arms up into the air, ready to catch the angels’ hands when they were close enough…

The shout that left him as they caught his arms and pulled up out of their dive was part terror, part triumph. His feet scrambled for purchase out of instinct, frantic for contact with the ground even as the angels hauled him up until he was bracketed between them, their wings beating until they were flying at dizzying speeds and Dean could only close his eyes and grip Cas that much tighter…

* * *

Something like a cry of fury. The Sefirot all turned their heads towards the sound, their eyes unseeing for a moment as they seemed to read the meaning of it in the air around them. “What is it?” Sam asked.

“The First.” It was the one whose sigils were sewn in silver. They were all speaking individually now; a shift that made Sam just faintly suspicious. “Your brother has escaped him.”

“ _Escaped?!_ ” Sam scanned the skies, a fist clamping around his heart at the thought of what that could mean, and then turning back to the Sefirot. “You have to tell me how to find him; he needs my help.”

“We were to bring you to Michael,” said the one whose sigils were worked in sunset orange. “We still should.”

“No, Gevurah.” It was the one with the green sigils again. “He is wrong, and his pronouncement of guilt affected the judgment of Raguel.”

“You would have us defy him, Chesed?” asked the one with sigils wrought in violet.

“We serve the Will of God, Da’at,” Chesed reminded gently. “And His Name is the only Truth.”

Something passed between them that Sam couldn’t quite read, their silver eyes steady and unafraid and for once not focused on him. And yet, as much as it was a chance to break from them and try to find Dean, instinct told him to remain. Something important was happening: too important to turn from just yet.

They moved again: this time not in unison, but flowing together, their movements an intricate dance that stilled Sam’s breath in his throat. It ended with all of them once more arrayed in a circle, each facing another’s back, their blazing wings shifting and spreading and their pale hands reaching in, fingers nimble as they smoothed through the ultra-white feathers.

And then, as one, each drew their hands back. Each cradled a prismatic feather from the one whose wings they’d been grooming, and they turned in unison, all extending them towards the center of the circle. One by one, the feathers rose from their palms as each said their names, then slipped into a rounding chant in a language Sam had only heard Gabriel use in unguarded moments… the feathers came together, pressed into one another, folding and shifting and flashing so bright that Sam had to shield his eyes…

When the chanting died away, so did the flare. Sam opened his eyes to see Chesed stepping forward, right hand extended and offering something out to him.

It was a strange, shimmering crystal key.

“This will open the Herald’s cell, and unlock his bonds.” Chesed’s silver eyes were intent as they met Sam’s, grave and certain. “The First will not be distracted for long, even with our help. You must go now, and seek your brother when the Herald is freed.”

A lump closed Sam’s throat, and he took the key from Chesed with shaking fingers. “I… don’t know how to thank you for this.”

“Refuse the Morningstar.” With the key in his hand, their names rang like bells in Sam mind: it was Netzach speaking now. “Resist him with all of the strength you possess. The same ferocity with which you fight to be returned to the Herald’s side.”

“I will,” Sam vowed earnestly, his fist closing around the key. The first real sign that what he’d come to do was achievable after all. “I promise.”

They all nodded as one, accepting his word, and then each raised their hands, holding their palms open facing Sam. The strange vista around him dissolved in a soundless shout before Sam even had a chance to say good-bye.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **_ SPOILER ALERT _ **
> 
> Are you all still having feeling after that episode on Thursday? BECAUSE I AM OMG POOR GABRIEL I CAN'T
> 
> Since I had no idea that Gabriel was going to be reunited with the boys in canon until the ep actually aired, the fact that this chapter is being posted today is _**entirely**_ coincidental. ~_^
> 
> /spoilers
> 
> As always, please see the series page for complete acknowledgements, warnings, notes and fanmix. ♥

~ooooOOOoooo~

The angel Dean didn’t know broke formation as they began to descend, his great wings tilting and sweeping both he and Dean under Castiel. Dean’s eyes went huge and wild as his fear of flying started to balloon into panic, just before Castiel’s free arm wrapped around his mate and curled him up against the curves of his body. He grabbed at Castiel’s back, his fingers sinking bruises into the muscles working at the base of those powerful wings and his breath shallowing almost to hyperventilation as Castiel shifted and angled, feet touching the ground only seconds before Dean’s own.

For a moment afterwards they remained that way: Dean wrapped around Castiel, his head buried in the angel’s neck as the tremors faded, and the angel stroking Dean’s spine in a soothing motion. “I had no idea your fear of flying was so strong.”

“Why the fuck’d’ya think I never do it?” Dean snapped, his words barely above a whisper but still peevish from a mix of primal fear, anger and adrenaline still flooding through his body.

“Your deep-rooted emotional attachment to your car.”

Dean’s head came up at that, his eyes narrow and wary of a possible insult. “Did you just dis Baby?”

Castiel’s brow furrowed in confusion. “I have no idea what that means.”

A soft chuckle from the new angel beside them had Dean shaking his head. “Nevermind; you’re just not allowed to make snide comments about my car when you’ve never even ridden in her before-”

“I have.” Dean blinked in confusion, and Castiel gave him a quiet, knowing smile. “And you might want to apologize to her for the number of times you’ve lectured at her while trying to banish spirits that don’t exist from the back seat.”

A gale of laughter erupted from their companion as Dean sputtered and blushed. “I can see why you enjoy him so, Castiel. That is _quite_ the charming blush.”

“And just who the fuck are you again?” Chagrin had Dean’s tone back to quarrelsome, and he resolutely wasn’t looking at how amused Castiel looked at having won that exchange.

“Strange: I’ve never heard anyone thank me for saving their lives in quite that way before.” The angel drew closer, his eyes never leaving Dean’s. “I am Kushiel.”

Something in the new angel’s tone… in the way he held his body… the angle of his chin and the gleam in those dark eyes… Dean felt a thrill wash through him, chilling down his spine and whispering over his skin… the promise of a kiss of leather… the relief of darkness…

“ _Kushiel._ ”

The warning note in Castiel’s voice had the angel stepping back with upraised hands, and Dean was left blinking as if surfacing from a particularly deep dream. “Never fear, Castiel; I’m not challenging your claim… but I’m never wrong about these things, if you must know.” He cast a smirk at his glowering brother. “I’ll be happy to offer you guidance when the time comes.”

If it was possible for a human to spontaneously combust, Dean was sure he was going to do so out of pure self-consciousness. “We’ll keep that in mind, champ… now can either of you tell me where exactly we are?”

“Level Nine,” Castiel told him. “It’s rarely necessary for anyone to come up here anymore, so we have a few minutes before anyone realizes where we are.”

“I’ve sent for help,” Kushiel told them. “We just have to keep ahead of them until Asmodel gets back.”

“We gotta get to Sam,” Dean insisted. “They can’t sense him right now, but he’s out there on his own and he’s gonna run into angels sooner or later no matter how good his cover is.”

“If he’s hidden from angels, it means we can’t locate him either,” Kushiel reminded Dean, his tone brisk but gentle.

“And we can’t hold the prison level without the help Asmodel is trying to bring,” Castiel assessed quickly. “Even if Sam is making his way to Gabriel’s cell, going there to wait is fruitless without allies.”

“We can’t just sit someplace and wait for him to show!” Dean snapped. He closed his eyes even as he said it, taking a long, steadying breath. “I can’t leave him out there alone, Cas. It was hard enough letting him go to college and not just set up shop hunting on the West Coast. Maybe if I had, we wouldn’t be in this mess. But they wanna erase our memories: you, Gabe, everything we know about Yellow Eyes and being the Vessels… I can’t let ‘em do that, and they will if they catch him.”

“Then we will get to Sam first,” Castiel replied, with the certainty of an immutable truth.

“How?” Dean asked. “If you can’t find him…”

“You can.” Dean’s head swiveled to meet Kushiel’s black gaze, steady and unflinching. “Blood calls to blood, Dean, and you are his shield as surely as he is your ground. You can use that to home in on him, no matter how adept someone else may be at hiding him from angelic senses.”

For a moment, Dean gaped, uncertain how to even begin to react. Almost everything in him cried out to refute the very concept. Sam was the psychic. The one with the powers bestowed by a fallen angel’s blood. The one that had always preferred to use his head before his hands and would someday have both the law degree and the control over his abilities to make it stick.

But he couldn’t ignore the quiet murmur from the back of his mind that he’d always dismissed as sibling rivalry. The whisper in his blood that said Sam wasn’t the only one that was special, that Dean had skills of his own. Gifts they possessed not because of demon blood magick, but from a birthright written in their bones. That he need only reach out and close his fingers to possess what he needed for he and Sam to be true complements.

That one small step was all he needed to take, and together they would be the immovable object that could stand against the breaking of the world.

His name on Castiel’s lips broke his reverie, and he turned his head to look at his mate. Without realizing he was doing it, Dean’s hand lifted across the space between them, slipping into Castiel’s and weaving their fingers together. Castiel’s eyes, always so blue he could drown in them, went from concerned to encouraging as their pulses synchronized, and Dean felt the last twinges of a dwindling resistance to the idea fade away.

Sam needed him. There had never really been a question. “So how do I start?”

* * *

Once again, Sam was alone when reality realigned, but this time, his surroundings were all too familiar. The gleaming silver-white halls of Heaven’s prison stretched out around him in a deceptively endless-looking labyrinth, and Gabriel’s misery was a strung note in his mind. Louder now, and more dissonant, as if he had already begun to lose what little vestiges of hope had been left to him.

Quantum mechanics weren’t anywhere near Sam’s forte, but he didn’t need a scientific doctorate to know that time probably moved differently here than it did on Earth. He had no idea how much time had gone by for Gabriel… how long the archangel had spent surrounded by the perfect whiteness of utter despair.

Just as the past two times he’d been here, it was easy to follow the thread of Gabriel’s grief through the winding maze of the prison. Why it was such a large complex when there appeared to be very little need for it, Sam couldn’t begin to guess, but it was a question he would reserve for later, when they had all gotten out of this alive. He wouldn’t let himself think, after getting this far, that anything else was a possibility.

Pausing at the corner he’d hidden behind when he’d first found Gabriel’s cell, Sam carefully peered around it to check his window of access. It was a straight shot from here to the cell door. The angel that had been tormenting Gabriel the last time, Zachariel, was nowhere to be seen. How long they would remain this way wasn’t worth guessing at, but for the moment, they were alone. Why that was so when Michael knew they were here and why, Sam didn’t want to waste his chance thinking about. If he was going to go, it had to be now.

On soundless feet, Sam sprinted from his corner and flattened himself against the wall just beside Gabriel’s cell door. The key was warm and alive in his fingers, his eyes darting from the lock to the sight lines of the corridor and back again as he fitted it into the keyhole and twisted until he heard the bolt inside retract.

“What no- _Sam!?_ ” Gabriel came to his feet as the door swung open and Sam slid in, pulling it as close to closed as he dared and crossing to the bound archangel. “How-?”

“Had some help.” Sam concentrated on unlocking the manacles at Gabriel’s wrists, almost shy of looking at his lover after everything that had happened. “We’re getting you out of here.”

“Where did you even get the key?” Gabriel shook out his hands as his chains fell away, staring at the impossible human beside him. 

“Chesed,” Sam said simply. “They convinced the other Sefirot to help, but we need to hurry; the distraction they set up won’t last forever.”

Gabriel nodded, short and automatic, as Sam moved on silent feet towards the cell door to scout the hallway just beyond. Getting out now was the smart thing to do. Logical, even.

It didn’t stop him from grabbing Sam’s face in both hands as Sam half-turned back and pulling him into an open kiss so fierce that it shocked a gasp out of the mortal in his grip. In a flash, Sam reacted, arms wrapping beneath Gabriel’s wings and hauling him up and in until the archangel was back where he belonged, back in Sam’s embrace, hands sunk in that walnut silk hair and legs around his slim waist and drinking in the tiny whimpers that throbbed into their kisses from Sam’s throat.

They’d crashed backwards out of the cell; Sam’s back against the opposite wall and he was half-staggering under the weight of Gabriel’s wings but he didn’t care… neither of them cared because he was here he was here he was right here and kissing him back and shining bright so bright brighter than the Morning Star…

It was almost too late when he sensed the attack. Without a thought, Gabriel’s armor manifested as his wings flared and he swung Sam free of his grip. The human stumbled as the blast sent Gabriel crashing to the ground a few steps away, but in an instant Gabriel had rolled back up again and was on his feet, wings arched high to protect Sam as he faced off with a seething Zachariel.

“Abomination.” It was a snarl from between clenched teeth, teal wings fluttering with rage.

“Careful, Zachy.” There was an edge to Gabriel’s voice that Sam had never heard before. “You’re my brother, and I love you, but you try for him and I’ll make sure you regret it.”

“How can you ignore what he is?” Zachariel hissed. “His very existence is anathema! A harbinger of destruction!”

“And he’s the best fuck I’ve had in 10,000 years.” He smirked as Zachariel sputtered and Sam choked behind him. “But even if he couldn’t blow bubbles, you’re still not getting near him.”

Rather than answer, Zachariel’s face twisted into a sneer even as he gave a short duellist’s nod. Sam watched in stunned awe as the angel’s form began to glow, shifting before their eyes into something huge… something impossible…

A sound Sam had never heard before lifted from Gabriel’s throat. He barely registered the way it flung Zachariel’s shifting bulk away from them before Gabriel had come around and taken hold of his wrist…

And then reality spun, compressed, closing in and blanking out and all around him was only gray warmth and safety…

When Sam’s senses smoothed back out, they were somewhere completely different. Sam blinked as he took in the green surrounding them, so unlike the sterility of the places he’d been before. “Where are we?”

“Level 3.” Gabriel glanced around, his wings flicking anxiously at the tips. “Got a few friends up here that might lay down some cover if we need it, and it’s the fastest way out.”

“We can’t leave without Dean and Cas,” Sam insisted automatically.

Gabriel shook his head. “Nobody here’s going to hurt your brother; Dean’s too important to Michael for anyone to risk big bro’s wrath like that. And Cassi’s clever enough to avoid being caught... at least, long enough to get them both here. He knows this is the emergency exit.”

“How?” Sam asked, looking around them. All he could see was a vast garden, plants of every possible description flourishing around them.

“There.”

What Gabriel pointed at with two fingers off to their left was impossible to miss. Sam didn’t know how he hadn’t noticed it at once, but the sight left him staggered, the immensity almost too much despite everything he’d ever learned or seen about the supernatural world.

It was a massive tree.

Even at this distance, Sam could tell that the trunk was impossibly thick, the branches rising as far up as Sam could see, its canopy stretching out for what seemed to be miles. The shape of the leaves were impossible to determine from here, but they were lush and green and inviting. It was the kind of tree every child dreams of climbing, just to see what adventures could be found in its arms. What secrets it would keep for whomever was brave enough to join it in the sky.

“It’s the Tree of Life,” Gabriel told him, falling in as Sam began taking slow, involuntary steps towards it. “Part of what humans call Yggdrasil. What you’re seeing is the section that connects Heaven to Eden. You can follow it down and get back to Earth through Eden’s Gates, and I can track it back to Yggdrasil’s main trunk and make my way over to Folkvangar.”

The last part seemed to snap the almost hypnotic hold that the Tree had taken over Sam and he stopped short, turning back to Gabriel. “Why would you go there?”

“Loki owes me a couple dozen favors,” Gabriel explained. “And Freya’s an old friend. If I can get to Folkvangar, I can ask for sanctuary; as long as I stay there, Mikey and the others can’t come after me.”

“That’s just trading one prison for another.” Sam didn’t know how to describe the knot that was setting up in his chest; panic didn’t quite fit, and neither did desperation. But he knew that if they reached that tree and Gabriel left Heaven for the Norse Gods’ realms, Sam had an inescapable feeling that he would truly lose Gabriel for good. “You don’t deserve exile anymore than what I just got you out of.”

“And that reminds me: what in Father’s Name possessed you to even try and talk Cassi and the others into this madcap rescue?” Gabriel demanded. “Not that I don’t appreciate it, gorgeous, but-”

“It was my fault you were there to begin with,” Sam snapped. “Why shouldn’t I have?”

“Because it’s insane, is why!” Gabriel’s wings flared in anxiety before folding back down again. “You’re a _living_ human, Sam. You shouldn’t have even been able to _find_ the door; nevermind actually getting through it! Not to mention the fact that you’ve managed to incite a minor rebellion in the process, which history has shown neither Dad nor Michael have any version of chill about. How did you even come up with the idea to do this?”

For a long moment, Sam was quiet, anger pulsing in his veins. After everything they’d risked to get here… with Dean still missing and God only knew what they were doing to him or Castiel… the whole thing possibly falling apart around them after a year of missing Gabriel so much that it sometimes hurt to breathe… and all Gabriel wanted to do was leave him behind again. “If you don’t know why I had to come,” he seethed, eyes narrow and dangerous, “then you don’t know any more about me than I did about you.”

“I know more than you think,” Gabriel shot back, his own temper flaring dangerously.

“Like about me being Lucifer’s Vessel?”

The words caught Gabriel like a slap to the face. He stared open-mouthed at Sam, who was now vibrating with something like rage. “How could you possibly know about that?”

“I was listening for quite a while before you saw me that first time.” Sam heard the sneer in the words and wished he could take it back. They didn’t have time for any of this. He just couldn’t seem to get a lid on how angry he was, especially since Gabriel was acting like he shouldn’t have come at all. “How long were you watching me before you decided to seduce me, Gabe? Huh? When did you decide that was the best way to keep me off the chessboard?”

“ _No._ ” Crossing the distance between them, ignoring Sam’s building fury and the urgency of their need for escape, Gabriel reached up for Sam’s face. The human pulled away, twisting clear of the archangel’s reach, making Gabriel even more desperate to reach him. “No, Sam; I promise you it was never about that.”

“Well, what did you expect me to think when I found out? You never told me anything!” Sam was all but shouting now, unable to help himself. Doubts that had plagued him for years were riding him hard in the heat of the argument, refusing to let them take another step until they’d been voiced. “Azazel was one of _your_ cherubim once. You knew I didn’t know why he wanted me when I was a baby or why he was sending demons after me in college. You knew that I’m a ‘vessel’ for one of your older brothers; that’s why you kept saying that I sh...” His eyes filled with angry tears as his voice broke on the memory of the endearment. He tried again; couldn’t get the words out. “That I…”

When Gabriel stepped into Sam’s space, the human didn’t pull away. Reaching up, the archangel gently thumbed the tears spilling from Sam’s eyes, hands framing the elegant contours of his face. “You shine brighter than the Morningstar,” he finished, his own voice cracking from emotions neither could find the scope of. “I meant every word I ever said to you… and I regret every one I couldn’t.”

The ache that Sam had been carrying around in his chest since that horrible night finally seemed to ease. His arms wrapped around Gabriel again, tugging the archangel in until their mouths were close enough to fuse back together. The sensation of feathers tickling around him made Sam gasp back out of the kiss, his eyes widening and then tilting up in surprised delight when he realized they were Gabriel’s, wrapping around him in a warm, protective mantle.

When his eyes met Gabriel’s again, the archangel was looking up at him with such gentle, glowing fondness that there was only one thing Sam could think to say… the one thing they’d never said, not in all their time together…

Those golden eyes widened another fraction, and then Sam was shoved free of Gabriel’s embrace for the second time in less than an hour. He spun back at the ring of steel against steel only to see Gabriel with a sword in his hand that he didn’t remember being at the angel’s hip, locked in combat with another angel.

Where Gabriel’s tunic was midnight sapphire, his armor gleaming silver, the angel he faced off with now was clad in crimson and sun-bright gold, his wings spread wide as they fought against one another for leverage, swords crossed and both refusing to allow the other the slightest inch of ground. “I won't allow this, Gabriel.”

“You can’t stop me, Mikey,” Gabriel ground out. He never took his eyes off his brother, much as he wished he could turn and look at Sam again just once… that they could’ve parted with a proper good-bye this time… “Sam, run now. Get to the Tree.”

“I’m not leaving you here!” Sam insisted.

“Our brother’s Vessel is the least of your concerns just now,” Michael put in, one of his feet shifting forward and the weight of his entire body leaning into the contest. “It’s hardly surprising that he’s done this, given his nature. But you should’ve known better than to follow him when he came for you.”

There was a faint scrape, and then Gabriel sprang free of their deadlock; his wings took him up off the ground and out of the path of Michael’s off-balance stumble, but it only granted him seconds before Michael had righted himself and turned on Gabriel again, his own powerful wings taking him into the air in pursuit. “Dammit, Sammy!” Gabriel shouted. “Forget about me and just go!”

“No!” Sam followed on useless, dirt-bound feet as the angels took their fight into the sky, desperately casting about for anything he could use to help: a weapon, something to throw, even another tree that he could climb up to possibly leap out onto Michael’s back if their path took them close enough…

“Sam, _look out!_ ”

The warning sent Sam’s eyes scanning his surroundings, and then he was diving out of the way as a short sword very nearly caught him in the left shoulder. By the time he was back on his feet, he was surrounded by more angels: cherubim, his mind supplied, though he wasn’t sure why. Hard-eyed and armed with gleaming silver short blades, they advanced on Sam as one unit, closing the noose to prevent him from interfering… or escaping.

“Leave him alone!” There was more rage in that voice than Sam had ever heard before as Gabriel dove for him, only to be forced to cut hard left as Michael’s wings drove him into Gabriel’s flight path. “I’m the one you’re pissed at, Michael; you leave Sam out of this!”

“I wasn’t the one that involved him in the first place,” Michael returned, the chill of his tone belied by the way each word snapped out. “You’re the one that so bewitched the boy that he planned an assault on Heaven to free you. You’ve left me no choice, brother, and you have no one to blame but yourself for what must happen next.”

Warning swept down Sam’s spine even as he saw Gabriel’s eyes widen in horrified comprehension. And then there was no more time: Gabriel was flying directly at Michael, his snarl of fury reaching Sam’s ears even as the cherubim began once again to advance on Sam, obviously intent on removing him to wherever what Michael intended for him was supposed to happen. Dropping into a half-crouch, Sam tried to summon the same build-up of power that had knocked the advancing Sefirot away from him, if only to buy them both a little more time…

It wouldn’t come. At least, it didn’t feel like it was. It didn’t feel like anything at all.

Michael and Gabriel were fighting again, wrestling in the dirt on a crest of ground nearby. The cherubim were almost close enough to touch Sam now. But try as he might, the power wouldn’t rise, and if they touched him, he’d lost… _*Dean…*_

“ _Sa-a-a-a-a-a-m!_ ”

Heads all snapping towards the cry at once, the cherubim scattered back as Dean fell through the air towards them at almost break-neck speed, dropping into a roll as he hit the ground and landing up a few paces from Sam. Sam could almost feel the feathers of Castiel’s wings graze him as the angel swung wide and back around to join them, but by then Dean’s bright viridian eyes were locked with his, and the connection between them was surging back to life, blazing like a beacon. “Can’t leave you alone for a minute,” Dean snarked, sliding around to press his back defensively against his brother’s.

“At least I stayed on plan,” Sam retorted, his eyes sweeping the ring of cherubim again. They were more cautious now, especially with Castiel settling into a ready crouch beside them. There were other angels starting to arrive, arrayed like the fractured rainbows thrown by a prism in a sunny window. How many were there to help, Sam couldn’t begin to guess, but he easily picked out Abariel among them, flanked by a taller, titian-winged angel he’d never seen before. “You and Cas get distracted way too easily.”

“We get out of this with our skins and we’ll see who gets more distracted by whom and how often,” Dean promised. “But in the meantime, you’ve managed to wake up the entire hive. Weren’t we gonna try and do this on the quiet?”

“ ** _Enough._** ” It was Michael’s voice, booming across the field like a thunderclap. Nearly every angel in hearing distance flinched at the sound, clearly used to such commands bringing them to heel in an instant.

Sam barely registered anything beyond the sight of Gabriel on his knees, locked into Michael’s grip. Both of the elder archangel’s gold-vambraced forearms were around Gabriel’s neck, and one booted foot was planted in the crook of Gabriel’s bent right knee. His heart lurched and Sam took a half-step towards them even as Dean spun, a sound of inarticulate rage choking in his brother’s throat.

“Enough,” Michael repeated, his voice no less stern for the lack of Heavenly Authority ringing the second time. “This ends here, and now.”

“Let him go and it can.” Sam could feel it now, with Dean at his back and Gabriel at risk: the power was back, rebuilding in his fingertips and sweeping up into his core. “We’ll go peaceably, as long as Gabriel and Castiel can come with us.”

“You’re in no position to demand anything of me, Samuel Winchester,” Michael informed him. “You will be returned to Earth, along with your brother, and you will carry no trace memory of us with you. That is the only peace I will offer, in light of what you have wrought today.”

“You can take your peace and shove it up your lily-white ass,” Dean snarled, stepping up to stand shoulder to shoulder with his brother. “Because last time I checked, brainwashing somebody into being your Stepford bitch ain’t any more kosher in Paradise than it is back home, no matter how ‘peaceful’ it makes things.”

“Nevertheless,” Michael replied coolly. “That is the only way you or your brother are leaving Heaven, Sam… and the only way that Gabriel or Castiel can avoid being cast from the Host. Either you both leave and be relieved of my brothers’ thralls, or you and your brother will remain in Heaven’s prison while both Gabriel and Castiel are condemned to expulsion. It is your choice.”

For a long, tense moment, everything was quiet. Sam’s eyes met Gabriel’s, the irises flickering in the perpetual light surrounding them. Beside him, he could feel Dean’s body coiled like a spring, ready to leap to defend the ones he loved. Castiel, steadfast despite Michael’s pronouncement assuring the fate to which he’d been resigned from the beginning, unwilling to leave Dean’s side even unto the bitter end.

This was about more than just Gabriel. All that they had learned... every chance they’d gained to prevent Azazel and Lucifer’s agendas from being realized… the rights of not just Dean and Castiel but every angel to love as they chose… this was about so much more than just the forbidden affair that he and Gabriel had started just a few short years ago.

Yet in that moment, Sam couldn’t see anything but Gabriel, and he couldn’t bear to bring any more harm to the archangel than he already had. But he also couldn’t stomach the idea of having come all this way, of having fought so hard and put so many others’ fates on the line, only to walk away with even less than what they’d started with.

Michael’s lips were parting, about to demand an answer, when the silence was broken instead by a soft, mirthless chuckle from Gabriel. “Won’t do you any good, Mikey,” he told his brother as Michael’s attention shifted down onto him. “You can try and erase their memories, but those mating marks aren’t going away and neither is Azazel. Sooner or later, they’ll find out enough for it all to come back and then they’ll crawl right back up your ass again looking for us.”

“Don't tempt me, Gabriel,” Michael warned, his voice regretful and furious in the same notes. “If necessary, I won't hesitate to take the second option.”

“Oh, I know,” Gabriel replied. “There isn’t one of us up here that doesn’t. But the thing is: you do that, and you’d better lock me an’ Cassi down even tighter than you did Lucifer, ‘cause that’s the only way you’ll keep us from mounting a rescue of our own.”

“No Fallen has ever regained Heaven,” Michael snapped. “Only after defeating me would Lucifer ever begin to be powerful enough.”

“That’s where you’re wrong.” Gabriel smiled like a man wearing a noose.

“And what exactly do you base that conclusion on?”

Gabriel’s eyes met Sam’s again, and something in Sam’s chest tripped over itself in response. “Because I’ll do things that would give even Lucifer pause, if that’s what it takes to get back the man I love.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OMG you guys... I have only just barely recovered from this week's episode, and especially all of the Sabriel feels it has left me with. Seriously: I'm _still_ screaming over the "I need you" scene.
> 
> Anyway, here we go: the penultimate chapter. Please see the series page for acknowledgments, warnings, notes and fanmix.

~ooooOOOoooo~

The words were so simple. So calmly spoken. And yet they drove through Sam like a spear, his eyes burning as they held Gabriel’s gaze.

Gabriel loved him.

Gabriel _loved_ him.

“So it looks like you’re the one with a choice,” Gabriel went on, still addressing his eldest brother. “You can let me and Cassi go hang out with Freyja and her girls for the rest of time while the boys go back home armed with enough information to possibly stymie Azazel for another couple generations… or you can try to lock up one set of us or the other and see how much of Heaven gets ripped down during the next rescue mission we mount.”

“I don’t think-”

“Actually…” Another voice, coming from a few feet away. Everyone’s eyes darted to the newcomer. Startlingly human-looking by all accounts, he was shorter than Dean by almost a full head, with short brown hair and beard to match. He was being escorted by a pair of twin angels, each looking as plain as sparrows in a covey of peacocks, and his eyes were a bright, piercing gray-blue. “There’s an option that you’re all ignoring… and I really think it’s about time somebody put it on the table for consideration.”

Michael was shaking now, his nut-brown eyes wide with shock. His grip relaxed enough that Gabriel ducked free of the choke hold, through the ArchHerald was staring as incredulously as the rest of the angels were. “This is a matter for the Host,” Michael said, his voice trembling just enough to be heard by even human ears. “It isn’t necessary-”

“It is,” the stranger told him, a stern firmness in place that made even Michael’s authority pale. “And thinking that you could contain this so that I wouldn’t find out is treading dangerously close to vanity, Michael. You know whose Will you were made to serve. Now let your brother up off his knees and stand down.”

Without even a trace of hesitation, Michael did as he was ordered, stepping away from Gabriel and standing at parade rest. Slowly, Gabriel stood and shook out his wings before folding them back, eyes never leaving the man that had commanded his release as he nodded once, silent and grateful.

Nodding back, the man turned to Sam and Dean. “Okay, boys: I think we need to have a talk. But not here; it’s a little too disruptive.”

“We ain’t going anywhere,” Dean argued immediately, distrust plainly written on his face. “Sure as Hell not turning my back on el Comandante up there, either.”

A small, almost nervous smile tucked into the corners of the mouth almost hidden by the man’s dark brown beard. “Michael is many things, but willfully disobedient isn’t one of them. He’s going to wait right here until we’ve settled this to my satisfaction, and then everybody’s getting marching orders.”

Another retort started in Dean’s mouth, but Castiel put a hand on his shoulder and it died away. “It’s all right, Dean. Yeshua’s orders may not be disobeyed by any angel under Heaven. He will not double-cross us, and will judge this matter fairly.”

Dean’s eyebrows knitted quizzically even as Sam made the connection, and then Sam was staring at the man in unmitigated shock. “You… you’re _God_?”

“Actually, I’ve been going by Chuck lately,” the little man replied with a wry sparkle in his eyes. “And at the moment, I’m manifested as only one of Our three Aspects. But technically… yeah. I Am.”

* * *

Landing after their location jump wasn’t as disorienting as it had been in journeys past. Between one blink and the next, everything around them was different: no longer the wild green of the Third Heaven, but a two-tiered deck with wrought-iron patio furniture and a Jacuzzi overlooking a vast private yard. Paths of crushed stone wound around the property, and the cultivated gardens were filled with fruit-bearing shrubs and fragrant herbs. There was a fire-pit not far from the lower deck, and a garage large enough to be another house could be seen just beyond a line of evergreens.

“Where are we?” Dean asked, a hard, mistrustful edge still in his voice. Castiel had stayed behind with Gabriel and the surprisingly large contingent of angels that had shown up in response to Kushiel’s call for allies. Chuck had assured both Winchesters that the twin angels that had accompanied him, Metatron and Sandalphon, would prevent the others from taking any action of any kind while they were gone, but Sam knew his brother. As far as Dean was concerned, his family was safest where he could see them, because if he could see them, he could protect them.

“Your place,” Chuck replied, lifting His hands out of the deep pockets of His robe to open the sliding glass door that led into the house behind them. 

Dean’s eyes narrowed on Chuck even as Sam’s eyes swept the room they were led into, drinking in the dark brown, overstuffed leather sectional; the rich, soothing forest green of the walls. The subtle, sleek and undeniably comprehensive entertainment center that took up almost an entire wall, more indulgent than anything the brothers had ever had and yet exactly everything they’d ever wished they could. “This is… is this…?”

“Heaven.” Chuck nodded, gesturing around with a soft smile. “Specifically, yours and Dean’s. It’s not uncommon for people that have powerful soul connections to share one, and your bond is more powerful than most because of who you both are. But for the most part, all humans have their own… we’ll call it a pod, for lack of a better term, where it’s exactly what would make them happiest. You can’t blend too many souls into a single Paradise, or it starts to crack under the stress.” One eyebrow quirked. “But I think the rest of the nickel tour can wait, don’t you?”

“Yeah.” Sam glanced at Dean, then back at Chuck. “So… what now?”

“Not much, really.” Chuck gestured at the couch and the brothers moved to sit: stiffly at first, until the scruffy deity gave them an expectant, somewhat exasperated look and slouched down into the corner of the sectional beside them. “I already know how you both feel. And, unlike Michael, I don’t have to be convinced that it’s genuine. It’s also probably not a bad idea, all things considered, that you two be prepared for some of the things that may happen in the next few years, and both Gabriel and Castiel are well-suited for doing just that.”

Sam’s eyes narrowed to minuscule slits of glittering hazel. Dean caught up in a heartbeat, then turned to stare at Chuck in enraged shock as Sam found his voice. “You,” Sam almost growled. “This was never about Gabriel trying to block Azazel from getting to me, and we didn't meet in some unforeseen accident. You set us up.”

When Chuck didn’t deny it, merely met Sam’s gaze with a small smile of approbation, it launched the youngest Winchester to his feet in a towering fury. “Do you have any idea what you’ve put us through? What they did to Gabriel? You manipulated us like pieces on a board; did you even give a damn what this was going to be like for us?” Chuck still didn’t answer, and Sam’s fury swept him up despite Dean’s attempts to subtly reel his brother back in. It didn’t matter that they were facing down God; Sam was incensed. “And what about Dean and Castiel? Is that your doing, too? Just positioning us for the sake of some cosmic chess game that you’re playing with Lucifer? Because if it is, I swear: we will take Caine up on his offer and-”

“You think my grandson’s offer is something that hasn’t already been planned around?”

The voice cut through Sam’s diatribe, as smooth as glass. Chuck never moved as He sat under the weight of Sam’s anger, His expression now the definition of ineffable. “The way I look to you right now? This is a Vessel, Sam: one I was only able to create with the help of a beautiful, brave and incorruptible young woman; and even it can only hold one Aspect of Me. The truth of what I am means that I can’t turn My abilities on and off like my children can, which means I can’t avoid Seeing. I can’t _not_ know.

“So yeah: I knew exactly what would happen and how much it was going to suck. But I also know what would’ve happened if you two hadn’t met that night. I know what would’ve happened if your mother had come into your nursery the night Azazel came to you, or if she’d never made the deal with Azazel and you two’d never been born. You can believe me or not, but what you’ve been through in the past few years is nothing compared to the alternatives.”

In the silent, echoing aftermath, Dean finally managed to get hold of his brother’s wrist and pull Sam back down onto the couch. His instincts were at war with each other at the moment, and the fastest way to quiet them was to have Sam close. “So what now?” he asked finally, a little surprised by how rough his voice sounded. “You wanted us to storm the gates and give you an excuse to pry Michael’s choke-hold off angel-human relations. What’s next?”

It might have been his imagination, but Sam was almost sure that it took Chuck a second too long to tear His eyes away from him… almost as if… “For now, you four go home,” He told Dean. “Sam and Gabriel go back to their penthouse in California and Sam goes to law school. You and Castiel travel and hunt and keep Eve’s children and Lilith’s demons in check.”

“For now?” Dean echoed, his eyebrow lifting slightly. “Meaning something’s gonna happen later.”

Another second too slow. This time, Sam was sure what it meant, and the bottom dropped out of his stomach. “There’s no way to stop it,” he said softly, watching Chuck’s eyes snap back to him. There was a shadow in them that Sam knew he shouldn’t have been able to see; a hurt even more ancient than Caine’s that could never truly go away. “The prophecy about us… about Michael and Lucifer… there’s no way to keep it from happening.”

A smile touched His lips again, surprised and tremulous and almost human. “No,” He admitted, the word brutal and gentle all at once. “I wish there was. You accused Me of playing a game, arranging you all like pieces on the board. Follow the metaphor to the end, Sam.”

Sam glanced once at Dean, a question in his eyes. Dean’s face was knitted with hesitation, with concern for Sam first and foremost, just as it had always been. But then Dean’s hand was folding into Sam’s in the space between them on the couch, and Dean’s expression smoothed out into something like certainty just before he nodded. “I’m right here,” he assured Sam softly. “Never going anywhere.”

Nodding back, Sam closed his eyes. Taking a breath, he tried to center and focus. To See. He was concentrating so hard on trying, he almost missed the faint rustle of fabric just before Chuck’s hand came to rest on his upper arm.

* * *

_Images. Snatches of sound. They came fast; so fast; too fast to process at first. So much. Too much. He wasn’t meant to see this much it was too big he couldn’t contain it all…_

_*It’s all right.* A voice that was and wasn’t familiar. His father. Chuck. The grandfathers he’d never known and the sons he’d never have and beings he’d never met. *You can.*_

_Instinct. A tether that he’d never been able to find before until it was over. Except it was right there this time: crimson and quicksilver, thrumming with life as he let it wrap around his wrist and fold into his fingers._

_*I’m right here.* Dean’s voice this time, echoing from the warm golden candleflame that was his brother’s soul. *You got this, little brother.*_

_It was easier this time. Less overwhelming. The vastness of it all was still too much, but the edges were blurring into view, and with them, the shape of something Sam had never imagined before. He held a breath that wasn’t there as he felt it translate down to Dean, felt the way his brother shuddered under the weight but held fast, refusing to let it buckle him._

_And all of a moment, Sam understood._

* * *

Coming back was far gentler than anything Sam had ever experienced before: like surfacing from a deep dive that he’d meant to take and was completely prepared for and practiced and had plenty of oxygen in his lungs before he went under. Dean was still there beside him, their hands entwined, and when Sam’s physical vision came back into focus, his brother’s wide-blown eyes were the first things he saw.

“Sam?” Dean’s voice was almost hesitant, like he wasn’t sure it would really be Sam inside his brother’s skull.

There was enough of an echo left of what they'd glimpsed that it made Sam ache. “I’m okay,” he assured his brother, tightening his fingers around Dean’s. “Are you okay?”

“Never better,” Dean lied, his lips curling in the smile that fooled everyone but Sam. He didn’t know yet how to process his own perception of what they’d seen, or even what it meant that he’d also been able to see it. All he knew was that they were still linked enough for him to sense they were both thinking the same thing.

They both just wanted to take their angels and go home.

It surprised neither of them when Chuck let out a soft sound somewhere between comfort and amusement from where He still sat behind them. “That can be arranged.”

* * *

By the time they got back to where the angels were waiting, the echoes from the Seeing had largely faded. Gabriel’s golden eyes were guarded in a way that reminded Sam sharply of Dean as they approached, and Sam held himself back only long enough to see Castiel fold Dean into his arms for a relieved hug.

Heedless of Gabriel’s position in the Host and very much not caring what anyone watching might think, Sam slid his arms under Gabriel’s and lifted, pinning the angel between the tree under which they’d all gathered to wait and the hard line of his hips. A long, low moan broke in the archangel’s throat just as Sam sealed their mouths together, nimble fingers of both hands gliding up into Sam’s hair and tangling there while Sam kissed him dizzy.

“I love you, too,” Sam murmured when he finally left off kissing in favor of oxygen. “And I’m gonna show you just how much when we get home.”

A grin broke on that sensual mouth, delighted and bright as the sunrise. It was better than anything Sam had ever pictured, in the moments when he’d dared to wish for it. “I’m dunno, gorgeous. On the scale of grand romantic gestures, it might take something _pretty_ kinky to top breaking into Heaven to bust me outta jail.”

“Now _that_ is an image I could’ve lived my entire life without,” Dean groused from the sidelines. His arm was still around Castiel’s waist, and the angel tucked just a fraction closer into the embrace in response. “Seriously, you two: you’re gonna need to tone it down when I’m in earshot, or I’m gonna stock up on Nair.”

“Bring it, Winchester,” Gabriel challenged as Sam set him down. “I’ve never lost a prank war in my life.”

“Could you children possibly reserve the posturing for when you get back to Earth?” Michael was looking at them like someone had just poured salted lemon juice into an open wound.

“Oh, let them enjoy the moment, Michael,” reproved a dark-skinned angel who was standing nearby. He had wings and hair like liquid sunlight, and looked entirely amused by the exchange. “This is going to be the easy part, and we all know it.”

Chuck looked at the two of them, something gentle but unyielding in His face. “You both know what you have to do.”

The sunshine-winged angel nodded, the amusement in his expression fading to chagrin. “It’ll be complete by the time they land.”

By the time Sam had registered that the angel had to be the Archangel Uriel, who had cast the second half of the curse, Gabriel was tightening his grip on Sam’s hand and reality was spinning away.

* * *

“This is really getting kinda old.” The annoyance in Dean’s grumble pulled an involuntary snicker out of Sam as their senses started to clear. They were back on Earth, lying on hard-packed, sun-warmed dirt. “Have I mentioned to everybody that I fucking hate flying? Because I think I’ve decided I hate _interdimensional_ flying even more.”

“Duly noted, sunshine.” Gabriel’s voice was a master class in sarcasm from somewhere behind Sam’s right shoulder. The sound made Sam’s heart skip. “Next time, we’ll let you walk back.”

“Fuck that,” Dean snapped. “I’m never going anywhere my car can’t ever again.”

Sam could hear Dean moving, pushing up from the ground with a grunt that meant ‘this is so much more uncomfortable than I want Sam to know about’. He could understand how Dean felt: Sam’s entire body felt like he’d been running for weeks with no rest, and his throat felt tight as if from dehydration. He wanted to move, wanted to see Gabriel and figure out where they were and eat an entire plate of barbecue ribs and then maybe, _maybe_ consider going back to the penthouse in Palo Alto.

It really was too bad that his body hadn’t caught up to any of that, though, because Sam was pretty sure his brain was telling his muscles what to do and his muscles were responding with a resounding chorus of ‘fuck off’. Which was really highly inappropriate, in Sam’s opinion. His plans for the next several days did involve being occasionally completely unable to move, but that was supposed to be _after_ several hours of mind-blowing sex.

Both Gabriel and Dean seemed to notice in the same instant, and Dean let out a half-formed squawk of protest that Sam didn’t understand until he felt Gabriel’s hands on his spine. Warmth seemed to pool down from those hands and suffuse through his entire body, washing away the throbbing, bone-deep ache and screaming tension that had kept Sam’s eyes firmly screwed shut. “Thanks,” he murmured, finally able to make his hands slide into position and his arms push his body upright. Dean was there seconds later, helping him balance and clearly trying to assess what Sam needed.

There wasn’t even a trace of self-consciousness as Sam lifted just enough to turn and slumped back down, his back fitted against Dean’s chest and his head tipped back onto his brother’s shoulder. Dean slid his arms around Sam on instinct, his own head tipping tiredly down until his chin rested on Sam’s shoulder. Castiel was a steady presence at Dean’s back, keeping him upright while he supported Sam. And Gabriel…

Sam’s eyes half-opened to see Gabriel sitting to the right of his outstretched legs, hovering like he wasn’t sure how to fit himself into the equation now that his freedom had been won. Wearily lifting one hand, Sam reached out and snagged the front of the midnight sapphire tunic his mate was still wearing, pulling just enough for Gabriel to get with the program and scramble over Sam’s right leg into the vee between them, curling into Sam’s embrace like a teddy bear desperately in need of comforting.

How long they stayed that way, leaning on one another and soaking in the sunlight, none of them could say. Eventually, they would have to move. Find out where they were. Arrange transport home. Figure out what all of this meant in the face of what they now knew to be inevitable events and determine what their next steps would be. Have as much sex as any of them could possibly stand. They couldn’t just stay clustered together on this nameless patch of sun-baked earth forever. But for now… just for now… this was all Sam wanted in the world.

Because against all odds, they’d won.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we go, everyone: the final chapter. This story has been a crazy ride, almost two years in the making when you take out the dead time it spent in my WIP folder, and the reception I've gotten for it from all of you has made it so worth it. I love all of you.
> 
> This story began with Sabriel smut, and it ends with Sabriel smut. Because balanced storytelling is important. ~_^
> 
> The series page has all the important stuff. I'll be marking the series complete for the moment because, as things stand, I don't have room in my WIP folder for sequels to this trilogy. I'm completely open to writing more in this 'verse, but I need to do right by the multiple other WIPs that have been languishing right alongside this one before I can consider it.
> 
> ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ Team Free Love = my OT4. Forever and always. My readers are the best readers.

~ooooOOOoooo~

_September 12, 2005_

“ _ **Dean?!**_ ”

Four pairs of tired eyes popped open at the shout; Sam felt Gabriel tense in his arms even as Dean reluctantly released them and pushed to his feet. “It’s okay,” he murmured into his lover’s hair. “We know him.”

“Hey, Bobby,” Dean called as the older hunter closed the distance between them. A hug barreled into Dean at full speed and he let out a small ‘oomph’ before folding into it. “You weren’t worried about us already, were you?”

“What the Hell do you think?” Bobby demanded, pulling just far enough out of the hug for Dean to see the entire glare directed at him. “I might be able to bamboozle Feds, but I ain’t got _diplomatic_ credentials, let alone anything _near_ good enough to make sure you two idjits haven’t spent the past two months in some Tehranian dungeon.”

“T… two _months_?” Dean looked back at Castiel, who was helping Sam and Gabriel to their feet. “How were we gone for two months?!”

“Time passes here,” Castiel replied calmly. “It doesn’t in Heaven. There is no real ‘past’ or ‘future’ there… or at least, not in the same sense that humans understand it; only the infinite ‘present’.”

Bobby eyed the angel suspiciously. “What exactly is he talking about? And who the Hell are these two anyway?”

“It’s... a long story, Bobby,” Dean admitted slowly. “And I ain’t tellin’ it on a dry throat.”

“Uh-huh.” His gaze shifted to assess each of them in turn, though the mistrust didn’t waver just yet. “And precisely which onna you idjits’s the idjit that got himself in so deep that these two knuckleheads decided they needed to mount a damn rescue?”

Gabriel waved with a grin; Sam noticed that this one didn’t quite meet those amber eyes. “What can I say?” he quipped. “I like my men tall and worth throwing your entire life away for.”

Bobby’s opinion of that outlandish declaration needed no more eloquence than a grunt. “Come on, then,” he ordered. “New neighbor woman makes a decent cobbler. Just dropped one off this morning.”

It was only by virtue of familiarity with the salvage yard’s layout that Dean beat Gabriel to the house, Sam’s laughter ringing off the wrecks around them.

* * *

The telling of it all took hours: long enough for Sam’s desire to eat his weight in barbecue to reassert itself with a vengeance, and to spill over into Dean for good measure. Between that and Gabriel’s prodigious appetite for sweets, it was only by the grace of the archangel’s ability to conjure what their cravings demanded that Bobby’s grocery budget for the month wasn’t blown clear to Hell.

Of the four of them, only Castiel wasn’t trying to eat Bobby out of house and home, though he dutifully sampled whatever Dean urged him to, his expression vacillating between serious contemplation and utter bafflement. Sam was fairly sure that the angel was going to need quite a while to acclimate to Dean’s hedonistic lifestyle, but from the way Dean was looking at his guardian, Sam was pretty sure that his brother wouldn’t be entirely unwilling to slow down long enough for Castiel to catch up on all of his pop culture references and culinary proclivities.

Despite Bobby’s protests that they were perfectly welcome to his guest rooms, food and camaraderie had taken enough of an edge off their exhaustion that the brothers made their excuses after dinner. Dean was eager to get back behind the wheel of his beloved Impala, and no one missed the flicker of relief in Bobby’s eyes when his invitation was firmly turned down. Getting used to the idea that angels were now as free to interact with humans as any other supernatural creature was probably going to take a while in and of itself, let alone that he’d just met one of the few with, as Dean put it, ‘celebrity cred’.

They’d made it all of two miles out of Bobby’s driveway before Gabriel’s patience ran out and he absconded with Sam to the nearest four-star hotel. Ordinarily, Sam would’ve protested; the lack of warning at the very least. But they landed on a soft mattress, and Gabriel’s weight was on top of him, grinding down against the half-erection he’d been sporting since dessert, and Sam decided he very much didn’t give a damn just now.

“Oh, gods, you feel good.” It groaned out of the archangel’s mouth and Sam couldn’t help the needy whine it pulled out of him. “Need you…”

“Right there with you,” Sam panted, leaning up to yank his tee shirt up and over his own head.

The archangel was still above him when he could see again: practically vibrating, breath shallow, eyes glowing hot amber as they devoured him. “You’ve been working out,” Gabriel murmured, his fingers tracing a meandering trail along the edges of Sam’s pectoral muscles.

There was a question beneath the naked admiration in Gabriel’s tone: something careful, almost uncertain. Sam held his gaze as his hands reached up, sliding up under the hem of the tunic Gabriel hadn’t bothered to change out of yet, his fingers wrapping around the strong contours of his lover’s thighs. “Well… little over a year ago, I all of a sudden wasn’t getting the same amount of exercise that I usually did. Had to stay in shape somehow.”

A full-body shudder went through Gabriel at that, his pupils blowing wide. “That’s so, huh? Brax get lazy while I was gone or something?”

“No.” Everything in Sam ached to move; to strip the archangel bare and lose himself in the way they fit together. But he couldn’t tell if Gabriel was teasing him or not just now, and he couldn’t… he _wouldn’t_ push for what he wanted until he was sure. “It was my fault… had a good thing going and kinda blew it.”

The sharp face above him tightened, his eyes widening just slightly… before Sam knew it, Gabriel had thrown his weight and their positions were suddenly reversed, Gabriel’s legs locked around Sam’s waist and his hands tangled in Sam’s hair, dragging his head down for a bruising kiss.

A whimper of relief became a moan; Sam could feel the sounds throbbing in his own throat as Gabriel’s hips twisted up against his, the friction maddening within the confines of his jeans. “It wasn’t your fault,” he whispered, when he could finally bear for their mouths to be further apart than the next breath. “It was never your fault.”

“Gabe…”

“You came and got me.” Right hand sliding down from Sam’s hair, dipping between their bodies until it reached the fly of Sam’s jeans. A flick of the wrist had it open and that hand was gliding inside, curling around straining flesh and driving a stuttering groan out of the human in his arms. “Don’t you understand? No one’s ever done anything like that for me before.” The warm, somehow slick fist slowly shifted, stroking from root to tip and back again with a drawn-out twist. “ _No one_.”

A growl, and Sam pounced, rolling them again and pulling the midnight sapphire tunic up Gabriel’s body. It forced the archangel to relinquish his grip, to hold on and ride the wave as Sam arched his hips to shove what was left of his clothing down his legs and kick it away. Sam couldn’t stop touching him, running his hands over every inch of the archangel now bared to his gaze, devouring the way the sunlight filtering through the privacy curtains washed over Gabriel’s skin.

Tawny gold, it was: sleek and smooth, his aureolas a darker bronze. The muscles of his stomach would be impossible for a mortal man with the same appetite for rich foods, twitching under the intensity of Sam’s gaze alone. The hair dusting his chest was the same sunset tones as that on his head, darkening as it arrowed down to the base of the archangel’s need, proud and leaking and curving slightly away from his belly.

It made Sam’s mouth water in the same turn that his heart ached, the reality of the moment overwhelming him. They’d really done it. They were together again, in the full light of day: no restrictions on their right to be together. And Gabriel still wanted him just as much as he ever had, if not more.

Gabriel’s fingers were exploring him again. So many times before, when Sam’s thoughts had been tangled up in a moment, Gabriel had tossed out a few sarcastic taunts and worked himself open with deliberate slowness until Sam finally caught back up with the program. But now he was just touching, his honey-amber eyes drinking in every inch of Sam they could see, lazily tracing the faint scars that his fingers knew by heart, lighter than the skin surrounding them.

For all that Gabriel’s night vision was better than Sam’s on his best day, this was the first time Gabriel was really seeing him as well.

Slow, Sam curled up into Gabriel’s arms, fingers lacing into the archangel’s hair as he kissed him. They felt the fitted sheet on the bed pull free as they rolled again, didn’t care as Sam laid the archangel out and began whispering kisses along the paths he’d learned in the dark… drifting here and there, light as butterfly wings, grazing the places that made Gabriel’s breath hitch and stutter… places he’d found by touch alone…

A sound strangled in Gabriel’s throat as Sam’s lips drifted lower, tracing a path down the cut of his archangel’s hip. His hands were in Sam’s hair, the fingers tightening out of a reflexive, almost ingrained warning and Sam stilled.

The scent alone was like a drug Sam had been too long without: musk and salt, beckoning to his tongue until his mouth was wet with want. But now he could see, really _see_ the dark flush of blood beneath the skin, the leaping pulse of the thick vein, the way it bobbed with every breath and shone at the tip where saline blurted free in pearlescent rivulets. They hung that way: Gabriel torn between the instinct to insist and the yearning to give Sam his head at last, and Sam not daring to breathe as he waited for Gabriel’s decision.

Breath shaking, the muscles of Gabriel’s thighs quivering beneath Sam’s hands, those fingers finally relaxed, staying laced against Sam’s scalp but no longer trying to keep his mouth from moving closer to its target.

Sam’s eyes burned with the threat of relieved tears as they slid closed. His lips brushing a reverent kiss over the head and something like a gasp tangled its way out of Gabriel’s throat above him as he settled in. He’d wanted this for so long that it was hard to remember that this had to be the first time Gabriel had ever allowed _anyone_ this intimacy. Hard to suppress the urge to devour and swallow whole what he had wanted since their second night together, stealing passion in the darkness.

Instead Sam let his lips keep whispering, brushing along the familiar length of his lover’s need while he drank in the tiny, shocked sounds that Gabriel couldn’t seem to help making. Here and there his tongue peeked out as he mapped the slippery skin, lightly teasing along the sensitive ridge or flicking against the throb of Gabriel’s pulse, each trace shaking out a whine so desperate that Sam wasn’t sure how long his lover’s normally-superhuman endurance would hold out.

The startled jerk of Gabriel’s hips when Sam finally closed his mouth around the archangel’s erection was predictable enough that Sam was prepared for it, his hands guiding Gabriel’s legs up to drape over his shoulders as he relaxed his throat, his whole body sighing around the weight that he’d been yearning for finally resting, heavy and perfect, against his tongue.

At any other time, Sam might have tried to draw things out, to bring Gabriel to the edge and then back away, dangling his orgasm just beyond his reach for as long as either could stand. But the shout that broke past Gabriel’s lips as Sam’s mouth took him to the root gave way to a flood of that strange angelic language, unintelligible and pleading, and Gabriel’s hips were restive in Sam’s grip, and Sam knew it wasn’t the time to test the limits of artistry. And so he swallowed around the straining girth of his archangel, throat and tongue working a steady, coaxing rhythm against the quickening staccato of Gabriel’s high, desperate whines, until those fingers were once again tightening in warning a bare second before the archangel was spilling in wrenching spurts down Sam’s throat, all but sobbing from the force of it.

Sam almost didn’t want to relinquish him when it was over, his mind firing off a stray impulse to rearrange them into a more comfortable position and just lie there until Gabriel hardened again within the warmth of his mouth and he could start all over. He didn’t seriously consider it, though; not with the way Gabriel was already letting his thighs fall open and shifting to reach for Sam properly, drawing the human up for a kiss so tender and wondering that Sam’s breath caught in his throat as they parted to curl into one another, exhaustion and overwhelming emotion finally drawing them down into dreamless sleep.

* * *

Sam woke to find the archangel lying beside him, propped up on his elbows and letting his eyes wander along the lines of Sam’s naked body. It drew out a self-conscious flush before Sam could even think of helping it, made worse when Gabriel’s eyes lit with mischievous amusement and Sam recalled the way Gabriel had wished he could take them somewhere sun-drenched and then hide Sam’s clothes just for the pleasure of seeing him blush.

“I can now, you know,” Gabriel told him, clearly reading the memory on Sam’s abashed expression. “Thanks to you and your brother… and Castiel’s complete inability to tell him ‘no’, apparently.”

“You had more people on your side than just us,” Sam reminded him gently. “Your Virtue… Abariel? He was hiding me when I was projecting into Heaven, and I think when we finally crossed the Gate, too. Otherwise-”

Gabriel covered Sam’s lips with two fingers on his right hand, his amber eyes suddenly solemn. “I know,” he said, a strange hitch in his voice. “They… I don’t know how they didn’t realize Abbi was hiding you from them, or he’d’ve been in a cell right beside me, like as not. But they knew you were coming. Zach was practically gleeful when he told me what Michael had planned for you.”

Reaching up, Sam drew the fingers away from his mouth and kissed the palm beneath them. “I’m so sorry, Gabe,” he offered softly. The archangel opened his mouth to protest and Sam cut him off. “And stop trying to tell me I don’t need to apologize. You kept things from me that I deserved to know, but I’m the one that waited until you wouldn’t see it coming. I shouldn’t have done that.”

A rueful smile curled across the archangel’s soft rose lips, his expression relaxing as he nodded. “Yeah… I guess you could say we both screwed up. But I meant what I said.” Sam’s head tilted in question, and Gabriel’s smile grew impossibly more tender. “You’re worth risking everything for, Sam. I knew what I was doing, and I don’t blame you for finally calling me on it.”

Sam’s mouth tugged on a half-grimace. “Even if it landed you in Heaven’s prison to be tortured?”

Slipping his hand free from Sam’s, Gabriel reached up and ran his fingers through Sam’s hair. “I knew what I was doing,” he repeated.

It was enough to confirm what Jess had argued over a year earlier, when Gabriel had first disappeared and Sam had been left with nothing but questions and guilt. The guilt was fading, though it would likely never dissipate completely. But some questions remained, unasked in the chaos of trying to fight their way free of Heaven. “You said it wasn’t about Azazel trying to get to me,” Sam started. He watched Gabriel’s face fall again, but the archangel didn’t try to stop him asking. “Or me being Lucifer’s Vessel. But you were watching me that night because of them, weren’t you?”

A pause. Gabriel looked almost lost, as if he hated the idea of responding at all. “I saw…” he started. Cleared his throat. Sam reached out and laid a hand on the slope of the archangel’s spine, silent and encouraging. “Not all angels have the Sight. I saw something coming; a storm on the horizon. Dad said I’d find the answer at Stanford. Universities are breeding grounds for all kinds of assholes that need smited halfway to oblivion anyway, so I didn’t mind blending in until I could figure out what I’d seen.” Sam snickered at that, and Gabriel’s brows lifted in mock-outrage. “What? It’s what I do.”

“And that night?” Sam prompted, his fingers splaying and flexing into Gabriel’s skin almost unconsciously.

“Blackout parties are especially fertile hunting grounds for all sorts of predators.” Gabriel stretched out under the attention, then shifted to roll onto his back and slide into Sam’s embrace in the same motion. “But then you walked in and I couldn’t take my eyes off you. Almost missed my chance to swap one asshole’s beer for the X-spiked one he was gonna hand to his target.”

“Because I ‘shine brighter than the Morningstar’?” Sam asked. It had sounded more teasing in his head; spoken aloud, he could hear the shyness mingled into the sass.

Gabriel’s hands were smoothing over his shoulders, up into his hair again. “Father help me, if you ever cut this short…”

“Gabe-”

“You do.” It was a statement of fact, golden amber locking with champagne hazel. “You can’t know, Sam… what it was like before he Fell. Michael was the Sun and Heylel the Morning Star, and together they drove back the Darkness… when they stood their ground together, they were the immovable object that even unstoppable forces broke against. But then…” Gabriel shook his head, the words he refused to say obvious in the silence. “It broke something in Michael; he hasn’t been the same since. I can’t even imagine what Luci’s become.” His expression tightened, his fingers smoothing through Sam’s hair again. “If he ever gets his hands on you, I…”

“Sshhh,” Sam murmured, bending his head and kissing the words away. “It’s okay… I’m still me…” He could taste the desperation in Gabriel’s mouth. The fear that even this wouldn’t be enough, that he would lose his brothers and his family and Sam in the bargain…

“I’m right here,” Sam murmured again, letting Gabriel’s thighs wrap around his hips as his right hand slid down between them, skimming along sensitive silken skin to just trace the edge of sensitive muscle hidden beneath. An oath in that unknowable language, and then Sam was grinning against Gabriel’s mouth as a bottle of lube materialized practically in his palm. “That’s really handy, you know.”

“You could be handier,” Gabriel snarked, his hips riding up against Sam’s impatiently.

“Patience is a Virtue,” Sam quipped, getting his fingers slick and letting the heat of his body soak in.

“She’s one of Raphael’s, not mine,” Gabriel shot back, the riposte dissolving into a long moan as two of Sam’s fingers sank deep.

The sun had set while they’d slept, but every lamp in the hotel room was lit; the yellow cast of the incandescent bulbs making Gabriel’s sun-touched tones seem to glow. Sam was transfixed by the way those amber eyes shuttered and rolled up, the way those lips parted around the sounds the archangel made as Sam worked him open. The curve of his neck as his spine bowed, hips pressing against Sam’s hand in search of a fraction more depth, a heartbeat’s more pressure.

“Come on.” Gabriel’s voice cracked on the words, eyes slitting open and his fingers digging into the muscles of Sam’s shoulders. “Sam, _please..._ ”

They’d been too long apart; so long that Sam didn’t even consider insisting, instead taking his mate at his word, lining up and pushing deep with a groan that felt like it had started in Sam’s toes. Buried to the root, with Gabriel wrapped around him and fine tremors racing through them both, felt like finally coming home.

Unable to help himself, Sam gathered Gabriel into his arms, lifting the archangel and bracing him against the tall headboard. The move all but dislodged him and Gabriel whined at the loss, bending his head easily into Sam’s kiss as the human pushed back in once he had the leverage he wanted. They stared down at one another as the kiss ended, each losing themselves in the way the other’s pupils blew wide, in clasping heat and heavy fullness. In being finally able to see one another, and let the connection that had been present from the start flare back to glorious life.

“I love you,” Gabriel whispered, arms and legs tightening their grip as Sam shifted, flexing the pressure where they were joined.

“I love you.” It felt like a promise as the impulse to move couldn’t be denied any longer: slow, shallow strokes at first, building longer and deeper until the bed pounded against the wall behind them.

And through it all, they held each other’s eyes, heavy-lidded but open and determined to not look away.

They ended up with Sam on his back, Gabriel on display above him, a ferocity in his expression that made lightening quicken in Sam’s veins as he rode down against every arching thrust of Sam’s hips. Sam’s hands found Gabriel’s waist, almost spanning it as they wrapped around to frame it, the sight of his archangel’s head thrown back in abandon almost enough to finish him. He wanted to do this forever, and forget everything but the furnace-hot glove of the archangel’s body around his own.

He wanted to brand Gabriel the way the archangel had branded him. Wanted to see the archangel’s wings unfurled and sink his fingers into the plumes.

Almost as if he’d sensed the thought, Gabriel’s head tipped back down. Their eyes met, a mischievous smile curling across his lips that Sam couldn’t imagine the meaning behind. Moments later, a great mantle of opal fire erupted from the archangel’s back, spreading wide and flaring in high arches before folding down to brush along their bodies like a cloak as Gabriel bent ever so slightly under their weight.

Eldritch static from the feathers leaped between them, a thousand tiny points connecting across Sam’s skin and shocking his orgasm out of him. There was a faint tinge of smug in Gabriel’s smile as he rode Sam through it, erased only when Sam’s hands slid up from his waist and sunk to the wrist amidst the feathers, splaying along the sensitive tissue beneath and shoving the archangel headlong into a climax of his own.

When it finally faded, Sam folded his mate down against his chest, stroking the base of Gabriel’s spine and letting him come down enough to fold the wings back into hiding. “I love you,” he murmured again, the words almost muffled by Gabriel’s sunset hair.

“Love you, too.” A soft kiss brushed over Sam’s chest, sealing the declaration like a promise.

“We’ll have to talk about it at some point,” Sam found himself saying.

Gabriel didn’t need him to explain. This was a borrowed bower, a convenience. Sooner rather than later, they would need to put the room to rights and leave. Brax, and their penthouse, were waiting for them. There were explanations to be made to Jess. Sam’s law school deferment to sort out. A nest of demons to address, not the least of which was the one living inside the skin of Sam’s former best friend. Azazel, still believing Sam to be ignorant of his motivations.

The storm on the horizon, waiting its chance to break.

“I know,” Gabriel replied softly. He didn’t want to look up, to shatter the fragile bubble that still shielded them from everything that they needed to face. Not just yet. “But it can wait.”

Sam nodded, kissed the top of Gabriel’s head and held him. He wasn’t sure how, but wherever Dean was with Castiel, Sam knew he and his brother was thinking the same thing: they’d won the right to walk this long, bloody road hand in hand with the angels that loved them. To face whatever came together. And if they needed to take their ease before they faced down Hell itself… well, they’d earned the right to that, too.

They were free to love where they willed, and woe betide anything that thought to come against them.

“Yeah,” Sam agreed. He let his eyes wander along the lines of Gabriel’s naked back, memorizing the play of the soft light across his muscles, the awe of finally being allowed to have this washing anew through his veins. The archangel’s sharp face tilted up as the stir of renewed interest below Sam’s waist inspired his own, their eyes meeting a heartbeat before Sam rolled Gabriel down beneath him again. “It can wait.”

~~~ _Fin_ ~~~ 

**Author's Note:**

> Updates will be posted every weekend until complete. ♥


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